A Vertical Look at UAV Connectivity in the Wild: Cellular vs. Starlink, 3D Characterization, and Performance Prediction
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arXiv
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| Format: | Preprint |
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2026
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| author | Chintareddy, Sravan Reddy Abdullah, Sherwan Jalal Clough, Justin D. Frost, Victor S. Keshmiri, Shawn Hashemi, Morteza |
| author_facet | Chintareddy, Sravan Reddy Abdullah, Sherwan Jalal Clough, Justin D. Frost, Victor S. Keshmiri, Shawn Hashemi, Morteza |
| contents | In this paper, we present an open-source measurement platform designed to characterize the performance of commercial cellular (Verizon, a major US provider) and LEO satellite (Starlink) networks through real-world flight tests in rural environments. We implement a comprehensive multi-layer measurement approach spanning physical layer signal metrics, multi-cell network topology, and end-to-end (E2E) application performance. Through an extensive flight campaign with more than $10$ flight tests, $4.5$+ hours of flight time resulting in more than $18$K samples, we present the first detailed, open-source dataset analyzing dual cellular and Starlink performance for low-altitude UAV operations. Our cellular-Starlink comparative results, which are collected \emph{simultaneously at the same time and location}, demonstrate significant performance differences between the two technologies: the LEO satellite link achieves superior latency performance with $95\%$ of Round-Trip Time (RTT) measurements below $50$ ms compared to $80\%$ under $150$ ms for cellular, and exceptional downlink capacity with $95\%$ exceeding $25$ Mbps versus only $5$ Mbps for cellular. Our analysis on cellular network performance demonstrates that while higher altitudes (e.g., $330+$ m above the sea level) improve signal power by $15-20$ dB via line-of-sight (LOS) propagation, it causes a $3-4$ $\times$ increase in handover rates, which is due to excessive multi-cell visibility rather than signal degradation. Furthermore, we observe asymmetric impacts on the RTT performance due to handovers such that $53.5$\% of handovers improve RTT, but worst-case degradation ($275$ ms) is $2$ $\times$ larger than best-case improvement ($137$ ms). |
| format | Preprint |
| id |
arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2605_27755 |
| institution | arXiv |
| publishDate | 2026 |
| record_format | arxiv |
| spellingShingle | A Vertical Look at UAV Connectivity in the Wild: Cellular vs. Starlink, 3D Characterization, and Performance Prediction Chintareddy, Sravan Reddy Abdullah, Sherwan Jalal Clough, Justin D. Frost, Victor S. Keshmiri, Shawn Hashemi, Morteza Networking and Internet Architecture Emerging Technologies Systems and Control Signal Processing In this paper, we present an open-source measurement platform designed to characterize the performance of commercial cellular (Verizon, a major US provider) and LEO satellite (Starlink) networks through real-world flight tests in rural environments. We implement a comprehensive multi-layer measurement approach spanning physical layer signal metrics, multi-cell network topology, and end-to-end (E2E) application performance. Through an extensive flight campaign with more than $10$ flight tests, $4.5$+ hours of flight time resulting in more than $18$K samples, we present the first detailed, open-source dataset analyzing dual cellular and Starlink performance for low-altitude UAV operations. Our cellular-Starlink comparative results, which are collected \emph{simultaneously at the same time and location}, demonstrate significant performance differences between the two technologies: the LEO satellite link achieves superior latency performance with $95\%$ of Round-Trip Time (RTT) measurements below $50$ ms compared to $80\%$ under $150$ ms for cellular, and exceptional downlink capacity with $95\%$ exceeding $25$ Mbps versus only $5$ Mbps for cellular. Our analysis on cellular network performance demonstrates that while higher altitudes (e.g., $330+$ m above the sea level) improve signal power by $15-20$ dB via line-of-sight (LOS) propagation, it causes a $3-4$ $\times$ increase in handover rates, which is due to excessive multi-cell visibility rather than signal degradation. Furthermore, we observe asymmetric impacts on the RTT performance due to handovers such that $53.5$\% of handovers improve RTT, but worst-case degradation ($275$ ms) is $2$ $\times$ larger than best-case improvement ($137$ ms). |
| title | A Vertical Look at UAV Connectivity in the Wild: Cellular vs. Starlink, 3D Characterization, and Performance Prediction |
| topic | Networking and Internet Architecture Emerging Technologies Systems and Control Signal Processing |
| url | https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.27755 |