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I’ve been using SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet for a couple of years now. It connects my home and keeps me in the internet fast lane for remote work. Now, the latest versions of Starlink’s dish and router hardware have arrived, and customers are reporting that the new Dish V4 and Gen 3 Router are offering better speeds and performance than the older Standard Actuated Dish (aka “Dish V2”) and Wi-Fi 5 router (“Router Gen 2”). That’s great news for anyone looking to start Starlink service today, because the improved hardware comes standard. But what about existing customers? Is the new gear good enough to warrant an upgrade?Well, to find out, I bought a new Starlink Standard Installation Kit, which includes the latest Dish V4 and Router Gen 3, along with the power supply and cables needed to set it all up. Let’s take a closer look at what’s new for the fourth revision of Starlink hardware, and why making the switch might not be a bad idea.
(Credit: Brian Westover)
Starlink Dish V4: Smarter and TougherWhile many users might be tempted to think that one Starlink dish is as good as another, the new Dish V4 does have new features that lend it some clear advantages over the previous V2 model.
In terms of pure performance, the dish gets a larger surface area and wider field of view, letting it more easily find the satellites overhead that provide connectivity.
Starlink dishes side by side: Dish V2 (left) and Dish V4 (Credit: Brian Westover)
Better weatherproofing increases the resistance to water and dust with IP67 Type 4 ingress protection. In simple terms, that means it can withstand not only spray and sustained high-pressure jets of water from all directions, it will actually survive submersion in up to 3.3 feet of water for 30 minutes. It’s also sealed against dust, instead of merely dust-protected, so it will stand up to blowing dust, sand, and dirt better than ever before.Speaking of blowing, the slimmer, more angular profile of the dish lets it withstand stronger winds, as well. Where the previous model can withstand 50mph winds, the new dish can handle 60mph gusts.
(Credit: Brian Westover)
And, thanks to a change in cable design, the new Starlink dish uses a standard (but heavily weatherized) Ethernet connector instead of the proprietary connectors used on the previous model. That makes it easier for installation and repair, and offers you the ability to replace the cable more easily if you need to.
Diagram showing the simple process to remove the Starlink dish kickstand (Credit: Starlink)
The move from a mast mount to an integrated kickstand makes it easier to use for both residential and mobile users. If you’re in an RV or similar mobile setup, placing and positioning the dish is easier than ever. And residential users who need to attach the dish to a pole or rooftop mount can quickly remove the kickstand and clip in the new mount in seconds.Moving to a static installation from a dynamic setup, with internal motors that reposition the dish as needed, is also a boon to Starlink. SpaceX finally has enough satellites in the sky to ensure coverage all over the world, so the need for a dish that can reposition itself is pretty much eliminated. But that also lets SpaceX cut costs on Starlink hardware without hurting the overall quality of service. That’s good for customers, who get a simpler device, and for SpaceX, keeping Starlink profitable and viable in the long term.
(Credit: Brian Westover)
Starlink Router Gen 3: Beefed-Up BroadcastsThe new dish isn’t the only thing that’s improved in the new Standard Installation Kit. The Dish V4 is paired with an equally new and improved Gen 3 Router.The biggest upgrade here is the move to Wi-Fi 6, a more modern networking technology than the Wi-Fi 5 (802.11ac) standard used in Starlink’s older Gen 2 router. It also steps up from dual-band to tri-band, offering an improved 4×4 MU-MIMO setup that can handle as many as 235 simultaneous devices on the network. That’s a big improvement from the 128-device maximum that the older hardware has.You also get a boost in coverage, extending the maximum range of the router’s Wi-Fi signal from 2,000 square feet to 3,200 square feet. If you’ve got a corner of the house or yard that hasn’t been getting great signal, this upgrade may solve it, and it should offer better connectivity everywhere within that range.
All of these enhancements are great news, but they should be taken with a grain of salt: The newer Wi-Fi 6 standard and accompanying upgrades are great, but Starlink is still only promising around 200Mbps download speeds, which is well under what either Wi-Fi 6 or the previous Wi-Fi 5 can handle. And that means that the newer router isn’t likely to offer better speeds as a result of this change. Any improvements will likely be thanks to enhancements to the dish and broader Starlink network of satellites and ground stations.However, it will offer better communication speeds between devices on your network. Whether you’re casting video from your phone to your smart TV, or transferring big files to your laptop from a NAS device, you’ll get a faster and smoother experience than ever before.Two additional improvements introduced with the new router include the addition (or more accurately, re-introduction) of integrated Ethernet connections, and the switch from an internal power supply to an external one. That eliminates the need for a separate Ethernet adapter, and also makes it easier to run the router and dish on alternative power sources, such as vehicle power or solar panels. And, in the event that something goes wrong, you can replace the power supply without having to toss the whole router.One final benefit that the new router brings is expanded mesh capability. The Gen 3 router may still be limited to three mesh nodes (unless you connect it to your own mesh networking setup), but unlike the Gen 2 router, you can pair the newer model with both Gen 2 and Gen 3 devices. If you’re an existing Starlink customer upgrading your hardware, that means you can hang on to your older Gen 2 router and use it as a mesh router to extend your Wi-Fi even farther.Starlink Installation: A Better Experience in 2024One other area of improvement that most customers might overlook is that the new design also makes installation a lot easier.For starters, it’s a snap to add mounting hardware to the new dish, thanks to the kickstand’s clip-in design. In my case, that meant removing the kickstand and slotting in a pole mount, so that I could put the new dish up on the rooftop mast I already have.
Starlink Installation Kits
Starlink Standard Kit: High-Speed, Low-Latency Internet
Starlink High Performance Kit: High Speed, Low Latency Internet
And hauling the dish up a ladder to put it on that mast was easier than ever, thanks to the less-bulky design. Even with a little more weight and a larger surface area, the slimmer Dish V4 was easier to handle while climbing, and less unwieldy than the previous iteration. That may be a one-time benefit, but when you’re perched on a rooftop trying to reposition a space antenna to talk to satellites in orbit, every bit of convenience counts.Starlink Dish V2 vs. Dish V4: Performance ComparisonWe’ll save our in-depth testing for our upcoming review of the new Starlink hardware, but with many customers claiming better download and upload speeds using the new dish and router, we weren’t going to pass up an opportunity to find out for ourselves and put some hard numbers to these claims.Instead of my usual two-week test periods, I simplified this testing to one week, with a change of hardware right in the middle of the testing period. That gave me three days of test data on the old Dish V2 and Router Gen 2, and then four days of data on the new Dish V4 and Router Gen 3. That may not be enough for a full evaluation of the service and hardware, but it is enough to see if the new equipment has an immediate benefit.Starlink Dish V4: First ImpressionsComparing just a few days of performance between the old and new hardware, I’m already ready to call the V4 a winner. In addition to the consistent connectivity I’ve come to expect from Starlink, I was pleased to see a noticeable uptick in download speeds and upload speeds, as well as a small (but real) improvement in latency. Let’s look at the data.Download SpeedsThe biggest factor in speedy internet is download speeds. Every page you browse on your laptop, every book you load onto a Kindle, and every show you stream on your phone or smart TV has to be communicated through your internet connection. Faster download speeds mean speedier connectivity for everything you do online. The good news is that the Starlink Dish V4 had a distinct and positive impact on download speeds.
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Average (mean) download speeds bumped up from around 120Mbps to 140Mbps and higher just from switching to the new dish.
The low download speeds dipped a little lower, but I never noticed anything that felt slow in my day-to-day use. Again, this is just a short sample of time; we’ll do a longer analysis with the V4 later on.
But the real magic is easily seen in the highest download speeds, where maximum bandwidth jumped from 250Mbps (at most) to more than 400Mbps on one day, and in the mid 300s the other three days. That’s easily faster than anything we’ve seen in our annual testing of the service, which has all been done using the older Dish V2 hardware.
Upload SpeedsAverage upload speeds also increased, though it’s a much smaller increase. Using the older V2 hardware, I was seeing upload speeds between 18Mbps and 20Mbps. Once I switched to the newer V4 equipment, upload speeds increased by 2Mbps to 3Mbps, ranging from 21Mbps to 23Mbps. Again, that’s not a huge difference, but a measurable improvement, nonetheless.
LatencyFinally, we measured latency, which is the time it takes for a data packet to travel out from your device, through the router and dish, up to the satellite, down to a Starlink terrestrial gateway where it pings the designated server, and then back, signaling a successful round-trip circuit of communication. All of this can be influenced by a variety of factors, like distance to the pinged server, the connection technology in use during any given leg of the journey, and congestion from other people using the same network infrastructure. Here, lower numbers are better, since that indicates less time elapsed between sending a signal out and getting the signal back.We did see some improvement, however small. Where fractions of a millisecond make a difference, we saw 1ms to 2ms faster speeds between the V2 hardware and the newer V4 equipment. Are these improvements enough to claim that the new dish and router offer reduced latency? Not in isolation. But if we see similar findings after more testing, Starlink certainly has a positive case to be made.
Again: These are rough averages over a short testing period. We’ll do more extensive testing and a deeper analysis when we review the new hardware in full. But the data points we do have so far paint a very promising picture of the latest Starlink hardware.Between the updated specs of the new dish and router, the improved performance seen in our first few days of use, and the overall reports of customers seeing better performance all across the globe, I feel pretty comfortable recommending the new hardware.
(Credit: Brian Westover)
Starlink Dish V4: Worth the Upgrade?While I’m very happy I made the switch, that won’t be the case for every existing Starlink user with older equipment. Buying the new equipment package does require ponying up another $600, and potentially more, if you need an accessory for your mounting setup. That’s on top of the $120 per month you’re already paying for Starlink service, and without any recouping of the money you already paid for the previous dish and router. It also means reinstalling your dish and router, which may not be too difficult for some, but may be prohibitive for others.One additional quirk of Starlink’s system is that activating the new dish and router combo isn’t as simple as swapping out the hardware. Because each dish has its own unique Starlink ID, you’ll actually need to add it as a new line of service on your account, and remove the old one. You’ll also want to try and time this with your monthly bill, since any overlap between the two results in a prorated service fee for the coming month’s service. After a month, you’ll be right back to $120, but it can mean that you end up paying a bit more for one month to get your new dish working.Whether the small gains of speed and performance are worth the added expense and hassle will be entirely up to you. But, as someone who has made the purchase and done the installation, I’m pretty happy with the improved performance I’m seeing.
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