A State Small Enough to Drive Across in Two Hours, Still Missing Broadband
Delaware is 96 miles long and 35 miles wide at its broadest point. You can drive the entire length of the state in under two hours. It has 1 million residents, a major city (Wilmington) just 30 minutes from Philadelphia, and a popular beach resort corridor from Rehoboth to Fenwick Island. By most measures, it seems like a state that should not have broadband problems.
But pull up the FCC broadband availability map and zoom into southern Sussex County. You will see gaps. Not small gaps -- entire stretches of western Sussex County where the only listed broadband option is satellite or cellular. Parts of Kent County between Dover and the Bayshore coast are the same way. The Delmarva Peninsula's agricultural interior has been passed over by cable and fiber providers in the same way that rural areas in much larger states have been.
Why a Tiny State Has Coverage Gaps
Delaware's broadband gap comes down to three factors:
1. Sussex County is bigger and more rural than people realize. It is actually the largest county in Delaware by area -- nearly 950 square miles. The eastern half has the beach towns and their broadband infrastructure. The western half is farmland, forest, and small crossroads communities. It looks and feels more like rural Maryland or Virginia's Eastern Shore than like Wilmington.
2. The Delmarva Peninsula economics. Internet providers in the mid-Atlantic focus investment in the Baltimore-Philadelphia-DC corridor. The Delmarva Peninsula, which includes all of Delaware, the Eastern Shore of Maryland, and a piece of Virginia, gets treated as a low-priority market. Population density is low, and the customer base is mostly agricultural and seasonal.
3. Seasonal population swings. The beach towns from Lewes to Fenwick Island see population multiply by 5 to 10x during summer. ISPs sometimes build capacity for the summer peak in the beach corridor but do not extend that infrastructure inland. The result: fast internet at the beach, nothing 15 miles west.
Who Needs Starlink in Delaware
Based on our installations in the state, these are the typical Delaware Starlink customers:
Poultry farm operators. Delaware and the Delmarva Peninsula are one of the largest poultry-producing regions in the country. Modern poultry operations use connected systems for climate control, flock monitoring, feed management, and compliance reporting. A farm in western Sussex County with 3 Mbps DSL cannot run these systems reliably. Starlink gives them the bandwidth to modernize.
Rural homeowners in Kent and Sussex counties. People living on 5 to 50 acre properties between towns -- not farmers, just people who want rural living. Their options are often limited to DSL (if the copper line even reaches their house) or cellular hotspots.
Vacation rental owners. Here is an interesting one: some vacation rental properties near but not in the beach towns lack reliable internet. A rental property in Millsboro or Dagsboro that cannot offer working Wi-Fi gets poor reviews and lower bookings. Starlink changes that immediately.
Remote workers who moved south. Several Delaware Starlink customers we have worked with are people who worked in Wilmington or Philadelphia, went remote, and moved to southern Delaware for the lower cost of living and proximity to the coast. They need internet that supports their jobs.
Delaware Installation: The Easy Parts
Delaware is actually one of the easier states to install Starlink:
Flat terrain: The entire state is essentially flat. The highest point in Delaware is only 448 feet above sea level. There are no mountains, ridges, or deep valleys blocking sky visibility. Almost every Delaware property has 90%+ sky clearance from the rooftop.
Moderate tree cover: Delaware has forests, but they are nothing like the dense canopy of New England or the Pacific Northwest. Most residential properties have some mature trees in the yard, but the obstruction is manageable with proper dish placement. We rarely need pole mounts in Delaware.
Standard roofing: Delaware homes typically have asphalt shingle roofing, which is the simplest and most common mounting surface. No tile, no slate, no special techniques needed for most installations.
Delaware Installation: The Challenges
Coastal corrosion: Properties within a few miles of the Delaware coast (and that is a lot of Delaware, given the state's narrow width) are exposed to salt air. Salt air corrodes standard mounting hardware, cable connectors, and any exposed metal. For coastal and near-coastal installations, we use stainless steel and marine-grade hardware. The incremental cost is small compared to replacing corroded equipment in 2 years.
Coastal wind loads: Delaware's coast takes direct hits from nor'easters and occasionally tropical systems. The dish needs to be mounted to withstand sustained 70+ mph winds. We lag-bolt into rafters, not just roof sheathing, and use mounts rated for coastal wind zones.
Flat roof drainage: Some Delaware homes, especially ranch-style homes built in the 1960s-80s, have very low-pitch roofs with limited drainage clearance. Mounting a dish on a nearly flat roof means ensuring water can still drain properly around the mount and that no pooling occurs. We elevate the mounting point and verify drainage clearance.
Agricultural dust and debris: Farms kick up enormous amounts of dust, especially during planting and harvest. Dust accumulation on the dish surface does not usually affect signal significantly, but it can clog the dish's drainage holes and contribute to moisture retention that accelerates hardware wear. Periodic cleaning (a garden hose rinse) extends equipment life.
Performance in Delaware
Delaware gets solid Starlink performance across the board:
Latency across Delaware is consistently 20 to 35 ms, which is excellent. For reference, legacy satellite internet (HughesNet, Viasat) has latency of 600+ ms. That difference is why Starlink works for video calls and those old satellite services never really did.
Cost Comparison for Delaware
If you are paying for CenturyLink DSL in rural Sussex County -- maybe $45/month for a 10 Mbps connection that actually delivers 4 to 6 Mbps -- switching to Starlink's $50/month standard plan is a $5/month increase for a 15x to 30x speed improvement. That is arguably the best value proposition in consumer internet.
Equipment cost: $349 upfront for the Starlink kit.
For most Delaware properties, installation is a standard roof mount with a clean cable run. No pole mounts, no specialty hardware, no complex terrain challenges.
One Honest Note About Starlink in Delaware
If you live in northern Delaware near Wilmington or Newark and Comcast or Verizon FiOS is available at your address, those services will give you faster speeds at a similar price. Starlink is not designed to compete with urban fiber or cable. It is designed for the addresses where those services do not reach.
But if you are one of the thousands of Delaware residents in the broadband gaps -- the farmland, the forest tracts, the country roads where DSL is the only option -- Starlink is the best internet available to you today. Not in 3 years when BEAD-funded fiber might arrive. Today.
If you are in southern Delaware staring at a DSL connection that barely loads a web page, let us help. Delaware installations are straightforward, and you will be wondering why you waited.