Internet Connection Health Check

“Is my internet healthy?” is really four smaller questions. A useful health check answers each one with a real measurement rather than a vague verdict, then tells you what a normal result looks like so you know when to act. Below are the four vital signs, what a healthy range looks like for Starlink, and how to read a bad result.

The four vital signs

• Download speed — how fast data reaches you. It drives streaming, downloads, and page loads, and it is the number most affected by congestion and obstructions.
• Upload speed — how fast you send data. Lower than download on Starlink by design, but it matters for video calls, backups, and posting.
• Ping / latency — the round-trip delay of a small request. Low latency is what makes a connection feel responsive; it matters more than raw speed for calls and gaming.
• Jitter — how much that latency varies from moment to moment. Steady latency is healthy; jitter that spikes is what makes a call stutter even when the average ping looks fine.

The test on this page measures all four in your browser against Cloudflare's network. For exactly how each figure is produced — and what it can and cannot measure — see our methodology.

What a healthy result looks like

There is no single “pass” number, because the right range depends on your plan and location. The honest way to judge a result is to compare it against Starlink's own published specifications for your plan. In broad terms, a healthy residential Starlink connection shows:

• A download comfortably within your plan's published range, not a fraction of it.
• A steady, smaller upload — normal for Starlink, not a fault.
• A ping in the tens of milliseconds, stable across repeated tests.
• Jitter low enough that repeated pings stay close together.

Treat those as directional, not absolute. A single reading is a snapshot; run the check a few times, at different times of day, to see the real picture.

How to read a bad result

If a vital sign comes back low, work through the causes in order before concluding the connection is unhealthy:

• Check the sky first. A partly blocked view is the most common cause of drops and low speed. Run the obstruction checker before anything else.
• Retest wired or beside the router. A weak Wi-Fi signal can make a healthy connection look slow. Test on Ethernet or right next to the router to separate the link from your Wi-Fi.
• Retest at a quieter time. Peak-hour congestion lowers speeds; the same setup can be healthy off-peak. Compare morning and evening results.
• Close other apps and devices. A background download or another device sharing the connection will skew the reading.

What a browser check can't tell you

Being honest about the limits keeps the check useful. A browser test measures speed, latency, and jitter well, but it cannot reliably measure packet lossor hand you a certified reliability grade — those need continuous monitoring or the Starlink app's own statistics over time. If your connection passes a health check but still drops, the problem is usually intermittent obstruction or a network-side event rather than raw speed, and the app's history is the place to look.

Run your health check

Start the test above with nothing else using the connection, note the four numbers, and compare them to your plan's published range. If everything sits where it should, your connection is healthy. If one number is off, you now know which one — and the checks above tell you what to do next. To see how your result stacks up against other options, use Starlink vs ISP, or confirm your plan fits your usage with the plan picker.