Tech Desk 
Jun 17, 2025
In what appears to be a challenge to Elon Musk's Starlink, the globally acclaimed satellite internet service, Chinese scientists have successfully increased China's satellite internet speeds to 1 Gbps, making it five times faster than Starlink.
The incredible achievement was attained using a 2-watt laser transmitting through space from a satellite positioned in a stationary orbit more than 60 times higher than Starlink satellites.
While satellite laser downlinks provide high-speed internet, they face challenges from atmospheric turbulence, which turns laser beams into blurry patches by the time they reach the ground.
To address this issue, a research team led by Professor Wu Jian from the Peking University of Posts and Telecommunications and Liu Chao from the Chinese Academy of Sciences engineered a method called AO-MDR synergy.
The AO-MDR synergy method reduces signal disruption caused by turbulence.
The researchers tested their system at an observatory in Lijiang, southwest China, using a 1.8-metre telescope aimed at a satellite orbiting 36,705 kilometres above Earth. The setup employed 357 micro-mirrors to reshape distorted laser light, significantly reducing wavefront distortion.
To further enhance the signal, a multi-plane light converter (MPLC) divided the incoming light into eight base-mode channels, allowing the three strongest signals to be combined in real time using a custom algorithm known as “path-picking.”
This combined AO+MDR approach gave signal strength and reliability a substantial boost, particularly in challenging conditions.
