- Starlink service is now more commonplace in federal gov’t networks, said MetTel VP Don Parente
- He noted SD-WAN has ramped public sector LEO adoption
- Starlink speed and latency stepped up in recent years
Low earth orbit (LEO) satellite is shaping up as a prominent player in the terrestrial broadband market, including the realm of government connectivity, said Don Parente, MetTel VP of Public Sector Sales.
MetTel, one of a handful of authorized Starlink resellers for government customers, recently deployed LEO satellite alongside SD-WAN and zero trust for the U.S. General Service Administration (GSA) as part of an Enterprise Infrastructure Solutions (EIS) contract.
“If we were talking about Starlink five years ago, we would probably be talking about a bunch of RV owners putting it on the roof of their campers,” Parente told Fierce. “Today we are seeing agencies use Starlink as their primary access network.”
In GSA’s case, it has a global footprint of 800 sites, some of which are in “really remote locations,” he said. As agencies like USDA relocate from D.C. and expand their footprints, perhaps more will follow suit and pick up Starlink.
Exactly how many federal agencies use Starlink for internet access is unknown, but SpaceX CEO Gwynne Shotwell said last year the company has $22 billion in government contracts. Starlink's global footprint continues to climb, as the service now has more than 8 million active customers.
A decent chunk of SpaceX contracts are with the Department of Defense where the company is supplying Starshield, a version of Starlink tailored for national security applications. The DoD recently said it “preprovisioned” Starlink service to support operations in Jamaica during Hurricane Melissa.
“We have customers using Starlink in Alaska. We have customers using it in Antarctica and all points in between,” Parente said.
SD-WAN is key ingredient
The key component for MetTel’s Starlink offering is SD-WAN, which he described as “the glue that ties it all together.”
Parente touted MetTel’s managed SD-WAN works with LEO satellite as well as the whole gamut of connection types — from MPLS to broadband to 4G/LTE. “We help them to seamlessly incorporate those other technologies,” he said.
He also noted Starlink works better with SD-WAN than geostationary (GEO) satellite service due to lower latency. “GEO satellites do a lot of WAN acceleration and other technologies to soften the blow because their latency is so high,” Parente said, which can result in a “weird dynamic” with SD-WAN.
He added because Starlink is rolled into MetTel’s managed SD-WAN, that could make it easier for customers to adopt the tech if they’re unfamiliar with it.
“We’re not just putting a satellite out there. We’re providing day-to-day support,” Parente said. “We can install it for you, we’re going to monitor, we’ll give you reports.”
Starlink performance ramps
Satellite broadband coverage has its fair share of issues - namely capacity - but recent Ookla data shows Starlink speeds and latency have noticeably improved in the last few years.
For instance, Ookla in Q1 2025 found U.S. Starlink users experienced a median multi-server latency of 45 milliseconds (ms), compared to 76 ms in Q2 2022. Download and upload speeds jumped to 104.71 Mbps and 14.84 Mbps in the last three years, though the average uplink is still shy of the federal 100/20 Mbps minimum threshold.