JAHIDUR RAHMAN

Bangladesh’s Starlink service is currently among the most responsive in Asia-Pacific, but high package prices make it unaffordable for ordinary households, according to a new report by Ookla, a global internet performance tracking firm.

The milestone in latency came within just two operational quarters of its commercial launch. Starlink received its operating licence in Bangladesh on April 29, 2025, and officially launched on May 20, initially offering two residential packages priced at Tk 6,000 and Tk 4,200 per month.

The report states that the monthly fees consume a disproportionately large share of household income in Bangladesh -- placing it among lower-income markets where affordability remains a serious obstacle to mass adoption.

LOWEST LATENCY IN THE REGION

Internet latency is the time delay -- measured in milliseconds -- for data to travel from your device to a server and back. Low latency is crucial for responsive, real-time internet, while high latency causes lag. It is caused by physical distance, network congestion, or hardware issues.

Starlink in Bangladesh has the lowest latency compared to neighbouring countries.

By the fourth quarter of 2025, Bangladesh recorded a median download speed of 88.95 Mbps and a response time of 35 milliseconds(ms) -- matching New Zealand and marginally faster than Australia’s 36 milliseconds, despite those markets having used Starlink since April 2021.

The performance gap between markets, Ookla’s report explains, comes down to where Starlink’s ground equipment is located.

Starlink Points of Presence (PoPs) are critical data centres where Starlink satellites connect to the terrestrial internet backbone. Deploying a Starlink PoP in Nairobi in January 2025 reduced Kenya’s latency from 289 milliseconds to 53 milliseconds.

Countries with local ground stations get a faster, more responsive connection, while those routed through distant facilities experience noticeable lag. For instance, East Timor recorded 157 milliseconds and the Maldives 118 milliseconds in the same period, as they don’t have local ground stations and use distant gateways.

Among neighbouring countries, Sri Lanka, which launched in July 2025, reached a faster download speed of 140.68 Mbps by Q4 2025 -- but its latency of 103 milliseconds was nearly three times worse than Bangladesh’s, a direct consequence of fewer local ground stations.

Bangladesh’s strong figure reflects the ground facilities secured as a condition of its licensing agreement. Starlink has built infrastructure at Hi-Tech City in Kaliakair, Gazipur, with additional sites in Rajshahi and Jashore.

“For governments negotiating licensing terms, ground-station commitments are a meaningful lever on the quality of service their populations receive,” the Ookla report notes.

Ookla also holds Bangladesh’s regulatory process as a model for the region.