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SpaceX’s Starlink service, which offers ultrafast broadband speeds via a mega constellation of satellites in Low Earth Orbit (LEO), has notified the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in the USA of their intent to launch a new Wi-Fi router for their customers – model code UTR-251. The new kit appears positioned to replace the previous Gen 3 (UTR-231) kit, but it has some caveats.
At present Starlink has over 7,200 satellites in Low Earth Orbit (c.3,300 are v2 Mini / GEN 2A) – mostly at altitudes of c.500-600km – and they’re in the process of adding thousands more by the end of 2027. Residential customers in the UK typically pay from £75 a month for a 30-day term, plus £299 for hardware on the ‘Standard’ unlimited data plan (inc. £19 postage), which promises latency times of 25-60ms, downloads of 25-100Mbps and uploads of 5-10Mbps.
However, every 2-3 years the operator does tend to refresh their broadband routers and dishes with new kit, which often reflects enhancements to previous services and support for new features. At present it is already known that Starlink are developing a higher performance dish (terminal) / package, which will support their aim of reaching gigabit broadband speeds.
The news of a new router, as spotted by PC Mag, may well feed into the above plans. But it is also likely to end up supporting other plans too. The UTR-251 currently looks likely to be a fully-fledged Gen 4 router to replace the older Gen 3, which itself was only first introduced in 2023. The new kit looks designed to stand upright, much like the older Gen 2 kit, but it’s also a step back in terms of only having a single Ethernet port (the Gen 3 had two) and can only be used indoors (not rugged).
Otherwise, the new kit appears to have similar WiFi specs to the Gen 3, but enhanced support for additional radio frequency bands has been introduced to help boost broadband speeds on the satellite connection itself. The new router is also expected to be more power efficient than the existing model, although we will only know for sure once that can be tested in the wild.
