[mike_d]

Cities vs rural has no impact on Starlink speeds. You fall into a "cell" which is a hexagonal region roughly the width of California. Each cell is served by a satellite that has a 20 Gbps downlink to a ground station. Everyone within that cell shares that 20 Gbps, and everyone using the ground station (4-8 cells) shares the backhaul capacity of that site.

(This is oversimplified but puts the capacity scoping in context)

[WJW]

How would city vs rural not have an impact on that??? If your cell happens to have a major urban area in it, you would have to share the satellite downlink with many many more people than if you were living in a cell that covers mostly ocean and a few tiny islands. (Or mostly deserts and some tiny hamlets, of course)

[xienze]

> If your cell happens to have a major urban area in it, you would have to share the satellite downlink with many many more people

In theory most or all of the people in a major metro area would be opting for faster, cheaper ISPs. Starlink is for people way out in the boonies that don’t have any other good options.

[hunterb123]

Providing broadband to rural america, what this whole FCC broadband push has been about, concerns those cells where there aren't many people over a large spread of land, where towers and laying down lines doesn't make sense.

So if you take a cell that has LA in it, it will be much more congested than if you took a cell in Wyoming, or Nebraska.