Traditional satellite
or Starlink?

The altitude of the orbit, and everything else follows from that. A geostationary satellite sits about 35,800 km above the equator; Starlink's satellites orbit at around 550 km, much closer to Earth. Since the signal has to go up and down twice, there and back, with geostationary that journey adds up to roughly 143,000 km, while with Starlink it's about 2,200 km. That difference in distance is what determines each one's delay: close to half a second in one case, milliseconds in the other. It isn't a question of which provider has better technology or which tariff you sign up for: it's pure orbital geometry, and no amount of better ground equipment can make up for it. Before looking at price or coverage, check what kind of satellite is behind each offer, because that altitude shapes everything you'll be able to do with the connection afterwards.

In practice, badly, and it's worth knowing before you sign up if the main use is remote working. With almost half a second of delay on every exchange, the conversation constantly overlaps: you speak, the other person doesn't hear it in time, thinks you've finished and replies, and the result is continual interruptions that no video-call app handles well, however good your camera or microphone. The software reads that delay as an unstable network and lowers the image quality to compensate, which makes the experience even worse. For browsing, email, downloading files or watching video on demand it works fine, because those uses don't depend on an immediate response. With Starlink, since the delay is much lower, video calls work normally. If your work depends on video meetings, that difference alone should tip the decision.

Yes, both are, because any satellite link passes through the atmosphere and a heavy storm absorbs and scatters part of the signal, which shows up as drop-outs or reduced speed while it lasts. No dish escapes that entirely. The practical difference is in how it's handled: the Starlink dish is designed to reorient itself if it detects the signal worsening, has a built-in heater to melt snow that settles on it, and the problem usually lasts as long as the storm, no more. With traditional satellite, if the exact point in the sky the dish is aimed at is affected by heavy rain or very dense cloud, the effect can be just as strong, with the added drawback that the dish doesn't reorient itself if something changes. Either way, a passing shower has nothing to do with the structural problem of latency, which is there every day, rain or shine.

No, and it's one of the questions we're asked most by people who already have an installation. The technologies are incompatible by design: a traditional satellite dish is a fixed dish aimed once, very precisely, at an exact point in the sky that doesn't move because the geostationary satellite doesn't move either. The Starlink antenna is flat and electronic, and switches satellite several times a minute as they cross the sky, so it needs to steer its beam constantly — something a parabolic dish can't do. No adapter or setting bridges that gap: the old dish is no use and has to be replaced entirely. What can almost always be reused is the work already done: the mast or bracket it was mounted on and the cable route into the house, which is usually the most laborious part of any new installation.

A different one, not a better one, and confusing the two leads to wrong decisions before anything is installed. Traditional satellite needs a completely clear line to a single fixed point in the sky, facing south in mainland Spain, with no obstacle between the dish and that point: a tree or a building blocking it makes the whole connection useless. Starlink needs something different — a wide cone of clear sky above the antenna — because it keeps switching satellite as they cross the sky in different directions, not just to the south. That means a roof with a perfect view south but surrounded by trees in other directions can be ideal for traditional satellite and useless for Starlink, and vice versa. The check always has to be done on site, standing at the exact spot where the antenna will go, not by eye from a photograph or from the garden.

It usually does, almost always as a monthly data allowance or a fair-use policy that cuts the speed drastically once you exceed it, even though you keep paying the same fee. It's one of the most common complaints from people coming from traditional satellite: the connection works well in the first days of the month and then crawls for the rest, just when it's needed most. It isn't a technical fault, it's a commercial condition of that type of service, and it's usually in the small print of the contract rather than in the headline of the offer. Since these conditions vary between providers and over time, the important thing isn't to memorise a particular figure, but always to check the exact limit and what happens when you exceed it before signing — whether the offer is traditional satellite, Starlink or any other internet provider.

It's not that drastic: it still makes sense in three specific situations. The first is when the location doesn't have the clear cone of sky Starlink needs — between very steep mountains, for example — but does keep a clear line to the fixed point in the south that traditional satellite requires. The second is when there's already a working installation, the use is basic — email and undemanding browsing — and changing it isn't worth the cost or the hassle. The third is very specific, low-volume data services where delay doesn't matter, such as certain telemetry systems. Outside those three cases, for general home or business use — remote working, video calls or several devices connected at once — Starlink is in a different performance category and the difference is noticeable from day one.

It depends on what you do with the connection, not on how long you've had traditional satellite. If you make video calls regularly, work remotely with apps that need a quick response or use remote desktop to connect to an office computer, the leap is noticeable from the first day: those uses simply don't work well with geostationary delay, and with Starlink they work normally. If your use is lighter — browsing, email, the odd video on demand — there's still an improvement because the delay drops a lot, but it's less noticeable day to day, and then it's worth weighing up whether the switch pays off compared with keeping what already works. The most practical approach is to do that sum by looking at your real use of the connection over a normal week, not the use you think you make of it.