(Credit: Starlink.com)
SpaceX has marketed Starlink mainly as a high-speed internet system for rural and remote areas. But it’s also gaining traction in some US urban areas, according to Speedtest data.
Ookla, which runs Speedtest.net, mentioned “Starlink’s surprising city appeal” in a new report examining rural and urban internet use in the US during the second half of 2025.
“Based upon the number of Speedtest samples collected across the US, five states—Florida, Massachusetts, Hawaii, New Jersey, and Connecticut—have more Starlink users in urban areas than rural areas,” Ookla found.
(Credit: Ookla)The findings are a bit surprising, considering urban and suburban areas are known to offer far faster gigabit internet, usually at lower prices. Still, Ookla editorial director Sue Marek suspects some urban dwellers are adopting Starlink partly due to dissatisfaction with traditional ISPs.
“While Starlink’s service isn’t a substitute for the speed and price of a fiber-optic connection, it does appeal to a certain segment of urban residents because it allows them to escape having to purchase from a fixed provider that provides poor service or doesn’t offer compelling price plans,” she wrote. “It also serves as a reliable backup for those who require 24/7 connection, and for digital nomads with a roaming plan, Starlink can be used to deliver broadband on the go."
To determine the urban-rural ratio, Ookla used the US Census Bureau’s classification, which says urban areas “must encompass at least 2,000 housing units or have a population of at least 5,000.”
It’s possible that Starlink subscribers are more prone to running speed tests than consumers on traditional ISPs. Still, Ookla published the findings, as some analysts have pointed out that Starlink could pose a competitive threat to traditional ISPs over time. "I think every fixed broadband operator should be very worried," said Hans Geerdes, a principal strategist at broadband research hub CableLabs, at an event last month, according to Light Reading.
“It's basically the second coming of fixed wireless, but at much better economics and with very, very aggressive competitive behavior,” he added. In January, Starlink revived its cheapest plan, Residential 100Mbps, which costs $50 per month for eligible US users.
In addition, SpaceX has become even more aggressive in promoting Starlink by offering new discounts and expanding its retail presence. For now, Starlink’s download speeds in the US usually range from 130Mbps to 300Mbps. The other problem is that certain parts of the country, such as the Pacific Northwest and Alaska, have become so oversubscribed that Starlink is requiring new customers to pay expensive “demand surcharges” to sign up.
Still, SpaceX is preparing to upgrade Starlink’s performance and capacity over time, using next-generation V3 satellites designed to power gigabit internet.
Ookla’s report also includes a map that breaks down the urban-rural ratio by state for Starlink subscribers, but it appears to apply only to test samples that achieved a minimum download speed of 100Mbps and an upload speed of 20Mbps. The data shows that a “higher percentage of rural Starlink users are able to get the FCC’s minimum requirements for broadband service than urban Starlink users," Ookla says.
(Credit: Ookla)"In rural areas, there may only be 10-20 users in that 60-square-mile area, so each user gets a large slice of the available bandwidth,” Marek added. “However, in urban areas, there might be thousands of people trying to connect to that same slice of available bandwidth, which means they get a much smaller piece of the pie and therefore have a smaller amount of available bandwidth.”
Disclosure: Ookla is owned by Ziff Davis, PCMag’s parent company.