Satellite Broadband in the UK: The Complete Guide

What is satellite broadband?#

Satellite broadband is an internet connection delivered by radio between a small dish at your property and satellites in orbit. The satellites relay your traffic to ground stations (often called gateways) that are wired into the ordinary internet.

From the inside of your house it behaves like any other broadband. The dish connects by cable to a Wi-Fi router, and your phones, laptops and televisions connect to that router as usual. The differences are all in how the signal gets to the router: no telephone pole, no street cabinet, no cable in the ground.

That independence from local infrastructure is the whole point. A cottage two miles from the nearest cabinet, a farmyard office, a static caravan or a narrowboat can all get the same service as a house in a market town, provided the dish can see enough sky.

How does satellite broadband work?#

A satellite connection has three parts.

1. The dish (user terminal). Current consumer dishes are flat panels rather than the curved dishes used for satellite TV. They contain a phased-array antenna, which steers its radio beam electronically, so the dish itself does not move once it is installed. Starlink's newest home kit is about 38 cm by 31 cm, according to its specification sheet.
2. The satellites. Low Earth orbit satellites cross the sky in minutes, so your dish hands over from one to the next many times a minute. Starlink says its terminals do this automatically and continuously, choosing whichever satellite offers the clearest path.
3. Ground stations. Each satellite passes your traffic down to a gateway on the ground, either directly or by relaying it through other satellites using laser links. Ofcom licenses these gateways in the UK and consulted in spring 2026 on two Starlink gateway licences.

Every request you make, such as loading a page or sending a frame of video, travels dish to satellite to gateway and back again. How long that round trip takes depends mostly on how high the satellites are, which is where the two families of satellite broadband differ.

LEO vs GEO: what is the difference?#

There are two kinds of satellite broadband, and they behave so differently that advice about one is often wrong for the other.

Geostationary (GEO) satellites sit about 35,786 km above the equator. At that height a satellite orbits at the same rate the Earth turns, so it appears fixed in the sky and a single satellite can cover most of Europe. The price is distance. A signal has to cover that distance four times for one request and reply, which takes nearly half a second at the speed of light before any processing. In practice GEO services have latency of 600 milliseconds or more.

Low Earth orbit (LEO) satellites fly a few hundred kilometres up. Starlink's operate at roughly 340 to 550 km and Amazon says its Leo satellites will orbit at 590 to 630 km. The radio path is around 65 times shorter, so latency falls to tens of milliseconds. Because each satellite only covers a small patch of ground and moves on quickly, a LEO network needs thousands of satellites. Starlink had more than 10,000 in orbit by March 2026, according to ISPreview.

Performance figures correct as of November 2026. Sources are linked in the sections below.

Why latency matters more than speed#

Latency is the delay between doing something and the network responding. Download speed decides how quickly a large file arrives; latency decides how responsive everything feels.

At 600 milliseconds, a video call has the stilted rhythm of a satellite news interview, web pages hesitate before loading, and online games that depend on reactions do not work. At 25 to 50 milliseconds, which is what Starlink quotes for land-based use in the UK, none of that is noticeable. This single change is why satellite went from a last resort to something Ofcom now treats as a mainstream way of getting decent broadband to remote premises.

Is GEO satellite broadband still available in the UK?#

Barely. Eutelsat's consumer brand Konnect states on its UK page that it is no longer taking on new home broadband customers in the UK. The reseller it points to, Brdy, now markets itself to businesses. If you see an old review recommending a GEO package with a monthly data allowance, treat it as history. The full list of who sells what is in our provider comparison.

How fast is satellite broadband in the UK?#

There are three different sets of numbers in circulation, and they measure different things.

The gap between them is not a contradiction. Starlink's own figure reflects what the dish receives. Speed-test and device measurements are taken over home Wi-Fi, at all times of day, and the 2026 figures also include customers on the newer plans that cap downloads at 100 or 200 Mbps. A sensible expectation for a UK household is somewhere around 80 to 200 Mbps depending on plan, time of day and how good your Wi-Fi is.

Three more points matter in practice:

• Uploads are modest. Starlink quotes 15 to 35 Mbps on its two cheaper home plans and 20 to 40 Mbps on the top plan, in its plan guide. That is fine for video calls and cloud backups, but far below full fibre.
• Speeds vary through the day. Starlink states that advertised speeds are maximums, not guarantees, and that they slow at busy times. The cheaper plans are given lower priority than the top plan when the network is congested.
• It is the fastest rural option short of fibre. In Opensignal's rural UK results, Starlink's 80.8 Mbps compared with 32.4 Mbps for the fastest 4G/5G home broadband service.

How those speeds translate into video calls, gaming and home working is covered in Living with satellite broadband.

Can I get satellite broadband where I live?#

Almost certainly, as far as coverage goes. Ofcom describes Starlink as the only LEO operator offering satellite broadband coverage across the whole UK, including the Highlands and Islands, rural Wales and Northern Ireland.

The limits are local rather than national:

• Sky view. The dish needs a wide, open view of the sky. Tall trees, a steep hillside or neighbouring buildings can interrupt the signal. Starlink says a partial view is often enough, but persistent obstructions cause dropouts.
• Somewhere to put a dish. Houses with a roof, gable wall, garden or outbuilding rarely have a problem. Flats, listed buildings and rented homes may.
• Plan availability. Starlink's two cheaper home plans are sold only in "select areas" where it has spare capacity. Everywhere else you are offered the top plan.
• Local demand. In busy areas Starlink can add a one-off demand surcharge or adjust the monthly price. Much of this currently affects London and the South East rather than remote areas.

You can check your own address on Starlink's website before ordering, and there is a 30-day trial with a full refund if it does not work out.

Who is satellite broadband right for?#

Rural homes on slow copper lines. If your fixed line delivers a few megabits and the mobile signal indoors is weak, satellite is likely to be the biggest single improvement available to you. Ofcom's spring 2026 update counted about 39,000 UK premises that cannot get even 10 Mbps from a fixed line or fixed wireless network, and said cheaper satellite plans had cut the number without an affordable decent option to about 4,000.

Farms and rural businesses run from home. Card payments, cloud accounting, livestock cameras and video calls with suppliers all work. Read the terms first: home plans are for household use, and Starlink sells separate business plans.

New builds waiting for fibre. Rolling monthly terms mean you can use satellite for a year and leave when the fibre arrives. New Starlink home orders currently come with a rented dish that you return when you cancel.

Holiday lets and second homes. Guests get reliable Wi-Fi without a landline. The catch is that rented kits cannot be paused, so check the cost of paying year-round in what satellite broadband really costs.

Motorhomes, caravans and boats. Starlink's Roam plans are designed to be moved and used on the go, including on inland and coastal waters, and can be paused between trips if you own the dish.

Homes that need a backup. People who work from home on an unreliable line sometimes keep a satellite connection as a second route to the internet.

Who should avoid satellite broadband?#

Anyone who can get full fibre. By January 2026 full fibre reached 82% of UK homes, on Ofcom's figures. If it reaches yours, take it. It is faster in both directions, has lower latency, is unaffected by weather or trees, and promotional prices are often below Starlink's.

Anyone with strong 5G at home. In towns, Opensignal found Three's 5G home broadband matched Starlink for speed. 4G and 5G home broadband is usually cheaper, so test it first. Our comparison of rural alternatives sets out the order in which to check each option.

Flats and homes hemmed in by trees or buildings. Without open sky the service will drop in and out, and no plan fixes that.

Very heavy users and anyone needing guarantees. Home plans are sold as unlimited, but in September 2026 some customers abroad who had used around 5 TB in a month were slowed to about 10 Mbps, as ISPreview reported; the restriction was later reversed in some countries and no UK cases were verified. There is also no guaranteed minimum speed, and support is handled online through the app and website rather than by phone.

People who need a fixed, predictable bill. Starlink can change its monthly price with 30 days' notice and has done so repeatedly.

Anyone hosting servers at home. Home plans do not give you a public IPv4 address, which complicates remote access to cameras and self-hosted services.

What does satellite broadband cost?#

As of November 2026, Starlink's home plans list at £40, £60 and £80 a month, with a rented dish at no upfront hardware cost and a delivery charge of about £19. Until 30 November 2026 new customers in selected areas are being offered £28, £42 and £56. Travel (Roam) plans are £55 and £100 a month, with the portable dish bought separately.

Those headline prices leave out several things that affect what you pay over two or three years: address-based pricing, optional installation, extra Wi-Fi equipment, electricity and the rules on returning rented kit. The full workings, including totals over 12, 24 and 36 months, are in What satellite broadband really costs in the UK.

Which providers sell satellite broadband in the UK?#

For a household ordering today, the practical answer is Starlink, bought direct or as a retail kit. Two alternatives are announced but not on sale: EE Satellite Broadband, which will resell Starlink through BT and EE, and Amazon Leo, which has an Ofcom licence but no UK launch date or price. Eutelsat OneWeb serves businesses and governments only.

We keep a current list, with every plan compared side by side, in UK satellite broadband providers compared.

Is there government help for rural broadband?#

There is, but less of it is aimed at individual households than there used to be. The UK voucher scheme closed to new projects on 31 August 2026 and Scotland's voucher scheme closes to new applications on 20 November 2026. The legal right to request a 10 Mbps connection from BT still exists, although Ofcom has confirmed that where Starlink is available and affordable, fewer homes will qualify.

Because the rules differ in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, we cover each scheme, and how to check whether fibre is planned for your address, in Satellite vs the alternatives for rural homes.

What is it like to install and live with?#

Most people fit the dish themselves. You place it where it has open sky, run one cable indoors to the router, and set it up through a phone app that also shows whether anything is blocking the view. A permanent mount on a roof, wall or pole gives the best results.

Day to day, the things owners notice are short dropouts if trees intrude on the view, slower speeds on busy evenings, and brief interruptions in very heavy rain or snow. Positioning, mounting, planning rules, weather, video calls, gaming and VPNs are all covered in Living with satellite broadband.