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