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The Fastest ISPs In the US
adeelarshad82 writes "For a second year in a row PCMag partnered with Speedtest to find out the fastest ISPs in the U.S. The results were a product of 110,000 tests ran between January 1, 2012 and September 19, 2012. Collecting data for both download and upload speeds for each test, Speednet was able to calculate an index score for a better one-to-one comparison, where downloads counted for 80 percent and uploads 20 percent. Moreover, rather than testing the upload and download speed of a single file, the tests used multiple broadband threads to measure the total capacity of the 'pipe.' While the results at the nationwide level were fairly obvious with Verizon FiOS crushing its opposition, the results at regional level were a lot more interesting and competitive."
I at least think my ISP sends their bills the fastest. Not sure about the "pipe" speed though.
Wednesday night the full idiocy of right wing politics will be exposed for all to see. As Romney tries to protect his rich donors' wealth, Obama will tear him to pieces.
FiOS coming in at 29.4Mbps down/16.7Mbps up is quite fast relative to the competition, but still pretty disappointing. I regularly hit 35/15 with my cell phone's LTE connection.
In addition Midcontinent has prices that aren't bad. Good bandwidth at a good price in a city with a population under 500. I would have never believed it before moving here.
As I have said repeatedly on here, in my area I have 2 choices: Comcast or Verizon. To get the lowest level of naked broadband service, 15/5, I would have to pay $75/month. From there, it's only how much they can squeeze out of you for minor increments in speed.
Despite this, the U.S. consistently ranks in the middle to the bottom in terms of speed, but always at the top in price.
So for all the talk about broadband penetration, who has what speed, etc, until real competition is injected into the fray or the law about one provider allowing another to use their lines at reasonable rates is enforced, surveys like this are relatively meaningless. If the cost of getting this supposed speed is too high, why bother?
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
i'm on the time warner a la carte $50 10mbps plan. next year FIOS is coming to my building but i will most likely stay with time warner.
reason is that i get almost 100 channels free through the same cable so i can watch sports and my wife can watch american idol without the need for an antenna
my inlaws have FIOS in their neighborhood but they still have cable because FIOS doesn't carry their international channels. same for a lot of people. that's what the geeks can't figure out when these studies are done
I'd really like it if they could make this distinction. I understand that for the typical user, it doesn't matter much, but it feels really deceptive. I pay for a 3Mb/sec connection, I typically get a hair over 2 in burst speed and then about 1 for any download that takes more than 3-5 seconds.
some cable ISPs here are known for unthrottling connections as soon as the URL includes something like /speedtest/ - e.g. NetCologne
FIRST POST, CHECK It BItCHES
A claim like "Fastest internet connection" is amazingly dubious based on the data they are presenting. What they mean more specifically is "fastest average customer". While some providers may offer fast services at higher prices, the only thing we know for sure from this is how many people are in the upper/lower tiers on a given provider. Sure, coming up with an actual "Fastest provider" number is going to be pretty darn hard to do (you basically need a way to reliably throw away data from anyone not in the fastest service tier) they could at least be a little more honest about what their "Study" is actually saying.
You mean to say the Slowskys actually had a fast internet connection... This might lead to Mr Slowsky in a roadside ditch.
It's not what your Sig can do for you, but what you can do for your for your Sig.
I have charter at the 30/3 increment. it costs just under $50/month. If I wasn't bundled for another 14 months I think I could get by with a slower speed, as long as I can stream some Netflix, and play a bit of CoD, or Battlefield 3 I would be happy. 10MB would probably be enough for me.
It is better to be the hammer than the anvil.
Speed is not as relevant as it once was. Caps are the big problem now for residential service. The providers are offering speeds in the 10's of megabits per second, but the caps are set so low that the service has no value for the money. There needs to be more competition in residential broadband or more regulation if there is not sufficient competition. The only way out of the caps is to order business service in my area (which I have done, but at $119/mo is quite expensive).
Both AT&T and Cox have caps in place for residential customers in my area. Cox has no cap (yet) for business customers.
If it can only be solved by regulation in certain areas of the country, then a moratorium on dividends or a 100% corporate tax on dividends of companies in areas with little competition might provide the necessary incentives to change things. Communications companies pay ridiculously high dividends to shareholders, and I'm convinced this is one of the roots of the problem. This money could be redirected over the long term to build a better Internet in this country, and the communications companies would stand to benefit from it.
There has been talk recently of the FCC investigating the cap thresholds, but that is just going to lead to a court battle in my opinion (at least in the past it has)
Where I live, I have two main options:
1) Verizon DSL at 768kbps
3) Time Warner at 3Mbps, 10Mbps, 20Mbps or 50Mbps
You can see why I'm happy that Verizon has the fastest internet in my region.
The problem is that Verizon, the only national company providing it to homes in the United States, stopped expanding to new markets a couple of years ago, or at least past the planned footprint. The existing 13.7 million customers get new upgrades (like the new 300Mbps "Quantum" option for $205 a month) and while Verizon expects to grow to 18 million FiOS customers eventually, after that, if you don't have FiOS, you probably never will.
Just sad. Europe and Asia are quickly leaving the U.S. behind. And no one has any plan to do anything about it. From internet pioneer to the back of the pack.
What political party do you join when you don't like Bible-thumpers *or* hippies?
Paying 20€ per month for my 100/20Mbit uncapped, unthrottled fibre connection.
The competitor is offering 150/30 for roughly the same price.
Makes me feel all warm and fuzzy reading TFA.
If this damn page would load fast enough...
I suppose I should be pleased. My very local ISP gives me a consistent 15/15 for $40 - $60 when bundled with local phones.
Home of Cisco, Juniper, Google, Yahoo, all the bleeding edge tech and network companies - and our internet speed is at a measly 10Mbits/sec on Comcast.
How pathetic !!!
Maybe all the tech gurus of Silicon CRUD has this pathetic slow speed so they can tell their boss - "But boss, the network is so slow,
I couldn't download/upload my work"
So how do their numbers compare to the Samknows numbers?
I'd like to see $/per Mbit. That would be a way more interesting regional graph.
If only I could escape from this 10mbit for 45 a month hell.
Come on google!
Want to see your Kansas test bed take off and expand like wildfire and force the incumbents to get in gear or get left behind. You have the clout to do it and to take them on in court in every jurisdiction you expand into so they can't force you out like they did so many other newcomers or lower their prices to break even just long enough for you to go out of business.
I know they are a corporation, like the rest, but they are the best one I have seen in a long time as far as how they treat their product (the people) before they deliver us to their customers (advertisers). While to others we are the customer and yet they still treat us like crap.
Google Fiber uses a PON network.
Shai Schticks:"You don't make peace with friends, you make peace with enemies"
Where is the broadband speed? 30mbps at max is not fast. Only becourse FIOS is the fastest does not mean its good. At least 100mbits I say. Like you could walk 99,999% over the street and not die. You are the best of the dead.. still does not matter.
Where is Centurylink?
Speaking of fiber, what about AT&T? The company did not make the top 15. In fact, the fiber-based AT&T U-verse service got an index of 7.9, putting it at number 22.
I'm really not surprised by this. One of the worst features of U-verse is that the tv and internet share the same bandwidth. After a little at home testing I found that my '18mbs' connection dropped by almost 6mbs per HD channel we were watching or recording. So while you pay for both, you can really only use one at a time. I promptly dropped their cable. The most frustrating fact is that we can't get Fios in my neighborhood. When we called to set it up while moving in the gentleman kindly informed me that if AT&T services my area Fios will not. Still trying to figure out how that is legal...
Or did they just have a crappy route to their test server? If I could make a living in Chattanooga TN and the wife be ok with it, I'd move in a heartbeat. The local city owned electrical company has HTTP on the cheap. Their base service is faster (50mbps symetrical) and cheaper than my base service with Comcrap: https://epbfi.com/enroll/packages/#/
Seriously wish that could happen where I live, but it will never happen. Sad thing is, the available ISPs and speeds are a factor in my choice of domicile. My wife rolls her eyes at that statement, yet she bitches when the internets are slow or don't work; go figure. I've got her on the same page now that we're on Comcrap and shit breaks on occasion. Who said it was impossible to get the wife on your side? I just use logic, point stuff out, and she'll come over to my side on things we disagree on in most cases. I just haven't gotten her on my side when it comes to guns yet, but I haven't made the effort to shoot down her lame arguments with facts yet; no pun intended.
I'd rather get a cost comparison of who provides the best value for low-end hi-speed broadband. /mo for 2 Mbps down and 1 Mbps up. (The cheapest/lowest-speed broadband of all the carriers.) I also have an antenna for television. Why? Because I live by myself in a modest 1200 sq ft house and do just fine with what I've got. Cable TV gets really expensive, really fast and I can't justify that cost over, say, two or more vacations/trips a year.
Specifically: I live in a highly populated area, and have multiple options for internet. BUT, I pay $40.00
I'd love to see who provides the cheapest low-end high-speed broadband. Preferably 2-4 Mbps down.
Consider its only in a limited few area's so how can be put under nationwide when its only in a few area's where as charter, comcast, etc are in every state?
Did anyone else notice that upload speeds were labeled as "Averge Upload" for every chart?
Apparently wizard is not a legitimate career path, so I chose programmer instead.
One thing I notice is that the index rating weights in favor of download speed more than upload. That's IMO misleading. It's OK in a world where people only consume content, but in an environment that includes Skype or Google Voice for telephone and video calls, Google Hangouts, cloud-based storage like Dropbox or Google Drive, workers remoting in to the office using VPNs and remote-desktop software, and mobile devices using WiFi and an Internet connection as an alternative to the regular cellular network, upload bandwidth is becoming as important as download bandwidth. Rating ISP A significantly higher than B when A's upload speed is half of B's and A's downloads are only 20% faster seems to me to be misleading.
Wish the chart somehow showed reliability as well. I used one of the hosts in the top 5 and I gladly got rid of them because the wouldn't provide the speed nor the reliability I was looking for. When I explained I was getting 10mbps and I was paying for 20mbps they reminded me it was "Up to 20mbps".
I wonder what it would take to get data like this into Gapminder.org. I want to compare connection speed to population density. I also want a version of the report where they exclude ISPs that effectively require a "bundle" with other services I don't want.
In the southwestern-most part of the contiguous KC metro area, I have a symmetric 18Mbps FTTH line with no caps, no throttling, and local phone service from SureWest for $58 after taxes. They offer up to 50/50 service here. I've had no problems with the service, and it has always provided me with the bandwidth I pay for, and sometimes more.
North of me in KC, KS, they will have Google Fiber rolling out their network.
West of me in Lawrence, Wicked Broadband has 10/10 wireless service, and is rolling out fiber service.
No way in hell the incumbents could outprice Google. $70 for Gigabit internet (Verizon FiOS is $210 for 300 Megabit)... not to mention basic connectivity at 5 Megabit for just a one off fee of $300 bucks to cover equipment and the construction is a pretty hard thing to match.
Just asking because I know the 20Mbps is standard in most areas with the bundles, but it's not the only option. Comcast also offers 105Mbps in my area for residential internet and 50Mbps as well as 105Mbps in my parents area.
Granted since it doesn't come in a bundle, most people don't take or even know of the option... but I'm curious what speeds you really get with those tiers.
I just came back from 5 months in eastern europe. the broadband there is 4-8x faster than most residential US broadband. and for a fraction of the price. sadface.
Fail/Flail
Not kidding, that's one of the perks about living in silicon valley, you get affordable gigabit internet services.
The regional stats aren't correct. In looking at the regional winner for Georgia, I see it's Verizon FiOS. That would be news to VzT (Verizon Telecom) since they have zero presence in Georgia (AT&T, formerly BellSouth territory). People in AL, TN, SC and NC would also agree. My guess is that the numbers for Tampa (LEC is VzT) destroyed the performance for the rest of the ISP's checked in the other states.
I would love to see a similar test performed, at a higher level of quality, for ISP providers in data centers.
why would Google make it onto the test when EPB doesn't? this obviously has naught to do with "fastest ISPs," whatever that would even mean. really they mean residential "broadband" access speeds over international common carriers.
sadly, they would probably include Google among this list just for political reasons.
national*
Why Google Fiber isn't #1? Just asking...
Speed means jack squat if you are being throttled. My ISP is the fastest of my area. But they don't tell you about their Accepted Use Policy or whatever they call it now. Regardless if you are a 'heavy user' or not.
- -= Napalm means serious BBQ =-
Here in Montreal, we have a ridiculous 50GB/month quota with Quebecor owned Videotron. Meaning no Netflix unless you upgrade to a more expensive plan (giving you more GB, but it's still ridiculous compared to other countries.)
You don't really have a choice, it's either Cableco or Telco (or their resellers) and really small bandwidth allocations.
In Austin where i live, its basically Time Warner or AT&T, its like two really crappy choices. I've been a TW customer for years now, but this is the company that gave me 10/1.5 in 1998. Back then it cost me $40 a month, and I was a _REALLY_ happy camper. It got faster for a few years until I had ~15/3 in ~2000, then it started getting slower and slower until it was 8/.5, and TW added another tier, Turbo, so I upgraded and now I was only paying something like $55 a month for 20/2 with "turbo boost" which regularly would hit 30/2. That is pretty much where it sat until a couple years ago when they finally announced DOCIS 3, would roll out with a 30/5 and a 50/5 tier. By the time it was available it was only 50/5 and 30/2. Sure enough as soon as those came out turbo dipped to 18/1.5, now its 15/1.5, and i'm thinking I have to pay them $75 to get 30/2.
Bottom line, my internet isn't getting faster, especially when you consider the download rates. The price is slowly creeping up. At this rate by 2025, i'm going to have 25/1 for $300 a month.
So basically TW is fucking us, especially if you consider that a basic base DOCIS is 4 channel config is 177/122, or basically at 20M down I should be getting 13M up.
If you don't mind all the freaking ads. Ziff-Davis should be shot. My AT&T gets 28 Mbits very easily. Upload speeds are a little slower at only 3 Mb however.
Also known as The Slowest ISPs in the World.
My buddy has charter, he pays for service that equals to 30mb/sec (advertised as 240 megabit, which sounds really intense to me with my DSL). Anyways, speedtest.net and other sites say he gets 36mb/sec sustained download and all that. But when actually browsing sites the connection is poor. He can't watch netflix or youtube in hd, and when he tried to download the customer preview ISO for windows 8 it was downloading at 20kb/sec. Torrents and other filesharing downloads are simlarly 20kb/sec.
My point is, fastest doesn't mean shit when the connection is fucking throttled. I was actually surprised in his case, and assumed he must have had some other shit running. But when I connected my laptop to his router while he ran a virus scan, I got the same shitty performance! Fuck throttling. I want internet to be treated like a utility. Surely it can't be that expensive to secure the bandwidth?
I'm in New York using Time Warner's Wide Band and I consistently get 50MB + on my DL. I don't understand how the article completely dismisses that (it's not even listed).
They will not include Google in the 'competition'. However, Google has plans to go national, and as such, there is little doubt that they WILL be included next year but most likely in a side box that has results.
America has lost its way with lack of competition. It is companies like Paypal, Tesla, SpaceX (and blue horizon), MakerBot, Amazon, and Google that are saying enough and lighting the way.
What about the initial internet service request? When I click a link or enter a URL, there is an ever increasing pause before the actual data starts moving. Comcast is the provider here, and while the speed tests show generally good rates (once commenced), it STILL takes a while to start, and it is getting intolerable. The ping tests are getting intolerably longer. I have quadrupled the check of my equipment, including router settings (have even replaced it), virus checks, and cache clearing. Even on other PCs, my connection still gets sluggish.
One could surmise that Comcast is actively playing with connections in hopes of prompting the user to upgrade service - and therefor the subsequent fees!
Is it me; does that seem a bit unethical? Perhaps outright wrong?
Latency has a greater impact than raw throughput when it comes to anything interactive and they don't necessarily correlate. For example Comcast vs. Centurylink here in OR. Comcast is the fastest and Centurylink the slowest. Yet Comcast routinely has ping times of 80-100+ms where Centurylink gets around 20-30ms ping times (using the same google ip as an example for testing). The difference is noticeable.
"It is better to die on one's feet than to live on one's knees." - Albert Camus