WetLinks: a Large-Scale Longitudinal Starlink Dataset with Contiguous Weather Data

TL;DR

A large and publicly available trace-based dataset of Starlink measurements, consisting of approximately 140,000 measurements, that comprises all relevant network parameters such as the upload and download throughputs, the RTT, packet loss, and traceroutes is presented.

Abstract

Low Orbit Satellite (LEO) networks such as Starlink promise Internet access everywhere around the world. In this paper, we present WetLinks - a large and publicly available trace-based dataset of Starlink measurements. The measurements were concurrently collected from two European vantage points over a span of six months. Consisting of approximately 140,000 measurements, the dataset comprises all relevant network parameters such as the upload and download throughputs, the RTT, packet loss, and traceroutes. We further augment the dataset with concurrent data from professional weather stations placed next to both Starlink terminals. Based on our dataset, we analyse Starlink performance, including its susceptibility to weather conditions. We use this to validate our dataset by replicating the results of earlier smaller-scale studies. We release our datasets and all accompanying tooling as open data. To the best of our knowledge, ours is the largest Starlink dataset to date.

Figures (12)

• Figure 1: The Measurement Setup. The purple $C$ indicates data endpoints, that are collected by the data collection server.
• Figure 2: Our measurement setups. In this picture, the Froggit DP2000 weather station can be seen placed directly next to the Starlink dish.
• Figure 3: The measurement process of the network link parameters.
• Figure 4: Download and upload throughput for Osnabrück and Enschede.
• Figure 5: The PLR plotted for the 25th of October 2023 from our measurements.