For the better part of the last two decades, PCMag has been running hundreds of speed tests, crunching upload and download speeds, and bringing you an authoritative ranking of the fastest internet service providers (ISPs) across the country. Now, in addition to speed, we also consider price, coverage, and customer satisfaction data in our rankings. By aggregating these data points, we're able to zero in on the best overall ISPs in the United States—not just the ones with the fastest speeds.
In addition, combining these variables into a single PCMag Cumulative Broadband ISP Index score allows us to directly compare providers more effectively. (See our methodology for more details.)
Of course, this is easier said than done. Some of the broadband providers in our survey have millions of customers, while others serve only small towns or communities, so head-to-head comparisons aren't always straightforward. For that reason, we break things up to show the Best Major ISPs, the Best All-Around ISPs, and the Best ISPs by Region of the US.
Want to become part of the story? Take the PCMag Speed Test to contribute data for your ISP. (Editors' Note: The PCMag Speed Test is operated by Ookla, which is owned by PCMag's parent company, Ziff Davis.)
If you live further North, be sure to check out our ranking of the Best Canadian ISPs for 2024.
The Best Major ISPs for 2024
Before we get into the winners of this category, let’s define a major ISP. For our purposes, this means a provider:
- Has delivered more than 1,000 tests in the past year on the PCMag Speed Test
- Has at least a million subscribers
- Has a footprint across at least four US states
With that criteria in mind, only 21 ISPs make the cut in 2024. That number shrinks even further if you consider that some providers are simply offshoots and subsidiaries of the same company. The best example of this is Verizon, which makes the list three separate times for its fiber (Fios), wireless/fixed-wireless 5G, and DSL services. This happens only because the vendor breaks out each ISP technology (by mapping it’s users IP address to the type of internet service they use) in our data. When we see a breakout, we use it. Another is Optimum’s fiber and cable, which appear separately.
Other vendors can’t (or just don’t) do that. For example, we get one number for Cox, which is a mix of cable and fiber services. That’s becoming increasingly common for cable providers (who are almost all trying fiber-to-the-home to supplement the coax). AT&T breaks out some technologies, like wireless, but not others—we don’t see AT&T Fiber in the results at the moment.
Regardless of how you divvy up the data, though, GFiber is a standout this year. It blows everyone else in the Major ISPs category out of the water with a PCMag Cumulative Broadband ISP Index of 28.5. That’s not a perfect score of 40, which is no surprise because despite being in several cities in several states, GFiber’s coverage footprint is tiny compared to services like T-Mobile, Xfinity, Spectrum, and especially Starlink. But if you can get GFiber where you live, you’d be foolish not to.
Last year, we split the major ISP award, partly because the top-ranking ISP was Starlink. Thanks to being available almost everywhere, it scores a perfect 10 for coverage. It also tends to do well in our Reader’s Choice ISP survey. This year, however, that high coverage score doesn't make much of a difference. Ultimately, Starlink is hamstrung by its high prices and low speed. It doesn't even make the top 10 this time around. It remains the ISP of last resort, especially if you have a fiber or cable option—or fixed wireless, as you can see with T-Mobile (more on that below).
If your main consideration is speed, note that the fastest ISP among the major players is the same as year: Midwestern fiber-to-the-home provider MetroNet. It’s another ISP that doesn't quite crack the top 10 among major ISPs (it’s at number 13), but still posts some impressive numbers nonetheless. The company earns a perfect 10 score for speed, with a national PCMag Speed Index of 340.5. That's well above GFiber, the next fastest ISP, with a Speed Index score of 268.9 across all its locations.
The Best ISPs for 2024 Overall
You may have noticed that T-Mobile places high in the chart above. Well, the so-called “un-carrier” has something else to brag about in our results this year: It’s the highest ranking provider across every ISP in the country, a list we narrowed down to 84 (the main requirement is at least 100 speed tests in the last year).
Our data set doesn’t include a breakout of speed tests by a mobile internet user (it’s accessible on phones) versus that of people using the T-Mobile 5G Home Internet service. Which ultimately doesn’t matter much, as they’re all using the same wireless towers for backhaul data connectivity. We had the option to cut the tests out altogether, but that seems wrong when fixed-wireless services like this (and the one from Verizon) are the fastest growing segment of home internet service right now. Well ahead of cable and phone-based ISPs. Since we had the price, coverage, and Readers’ Choice numbers for T-Mobile (and Verizon) fixed-wireless, we applied them. Which led to the shocking upset you see here:
T-Mobile’s speed is inferior to almost everyone on the list, except Verizon Wireless (consider that Verizon 5G Internet) and Starlink. T-Mobile also has roughly half of Starlink’s reach—but that’s still more than half the country. Where it dazzles is having a decent price—but almost every ISP on the list got a great price rating, thanks to comparison to the terrible cost of Starlink. T-Mobile 5G home also had a great showing in our Readers’ Choice awards. Those combos pushes it to the top of the list, even ahead of the much faster, cheaper, beloved GFiber. Google’s service lingers in second, thanks mostly to its limited availability.
The rest of the top 10 includes big name vendors like Xfinity, Spectrum, Fios, and Frontier filling in the slots. Astound, in particular, we should note, came in on tests across all of its former ISP brands (RCN, Grande, Wave, etc.), but we combined them all for speed and coverage and used the best pricing option from the former RCN’s top tier. That lands the conglomerate ISP in seventh.
You may also notice that the speed test ratings in the top 10 are all on the low side. That’s because compared to the fastest ISP in the entire nation, most of them—even GFiber—appear to stand still. That blazingly fast ISP is California-based Sonic. It’s one of the ISPs that forced us to start using medians instead of averages for speeds in our methodology—but like last time, the switch doesn’t mean anything when the vast majority of the speed tests are coming in astronomically high. Sonic is one of the few ISPs offering 10Gbps connections at home, and that shows. Last year, its median PCMag Speed Index was 748.3. This year, it's up to 829.7.
The Best ISPs by US Region
The United States Census Bureau breaks up the country into four regions (Northeast, Midwest, South, and West), and then breaks those down even further (for a total of nine divisions) to make for easier categorization. We follow that lead since it helps us narrow down top ISPs for each section of the country. Below is our map of the US, showing all nine Census divisions. Pass your cursor (or thumb if you’re on mobile) over an area to see a preview of the top ISP in each region. Click the tabs at the top to see how 2023 compares with this year.
Here’s a deeper dive into all four regions/nine divisions so you can examine the competition.
Northeast
New England Division: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont
Best ISP: Verizon Fios
Fastest ISP: Verizon Fios
Verizon Fios rules in New England, just as it did last year. It’s always been strong in the northeast in our coverage, so it’s no surprise to see it happen again. But as the company has sold off more and more lines and slowed expansion, dropping down to being the best/fastest in just one area is inevitable. That company's PCMag Cumulative Broadband ISP Index score of 32.7 is also the highest of any ISP in any division in all the charts and higher than the 30.2 it had last year. It puts Fios in New England as close to perfect as an ISP can get. The service is hamstrung only by a middling coverage rating, at less than half of what Spectrum has in those same states.
Fios also has the top speed for New England. The second fastest is Frontier, displacing last year’s silver medalist, GoNetSpeed, which falls to third. But they’re all pretty speedy.
Middle Atlantic Division: New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania
Best ISP: Optimum Fiber
Fastest ISP: Optimum Fiber
Last year, the Middle Atlantic division belonged to Fios. But the speed rating from Optimum’s fiber service—broken out and separated from its cable services for the first time this year—helped push the Altice-owned ISP to the top. It also doesn’t hurt, again, that the price for Optimum Fiber also gets a good score because the cost of Starlink skews the price ratings in almost every other ISPs favor. It’s all enough to slot Optimum just ahead of Fios, Xfinity, T-Mobile 5G Home, and Astound Broadband. Starlink makes the top 10 in the number eight slot. Even Optimum’s cable service is there, at the bottom, but still scoring well for its price per megabit per second.
Last year, Greenlight Networks stole the show as the fastest ISP in the area, but this year it falls to the number two spot against Optimum.
Midwest
East North Central Division: Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, and Wisconsin
Best ISP: Spectrum
Fastest ISP: MetroNet
Same as last year, Spectrum is the best ISP and MetroNet nabs the fastest ISP slot. Spectrum’s ratings this year are a bit lower for speed, coverage, and overall satisfaction, but it has a near-perfect 9.8 for price. Again, the Starlink effect doesn’t hurt the other ISPs at all in the rankings; the satellite ISP is number seven in this area. It’s behind Xfinity, Astound, and fixed-wireless from Verizon and T-Mobile.
It's also worth noting that MetroNet’s PCMag Speed Index score has more than doubled since last year, from 223.9 to 500.2. That’s the kind of service everyone should be looking for.
West North Central Division: Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, and South Dakota
Best ISP: GFiber
Fastest ISP: Allo
Another repeat winner, GFiber takes the top slot for the West North Central region. It’s got a perfect score on price, a stellar Readers’ Choice satisfaction score from our previous survey, and a respectable speed rating. If Google would expand the service into more towns, it would likely be unbeatable for the foreseeable future. But that doesn't necessarily mean there isn't competition in those areas. Quite the contrary, in fact.
For example, last year in this region, GFiber also won as the fastest ISP. This year, that title goes to Lincoln, Nebraska based Allo, which was second to GFiber last year. Allo’s speed index of 155.5 jumped way, way up to 401.1, showing that while speed isn’t everything, it sure is something.
South
South Atlantic Division: Delaware, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, and West Virginia
Best ISP: GFiber
Fastest ISP: Ting
GFiber’s takeover in the rankings for all the southern states begins here, on the East coast, stretching from Delaware/Maryland on down. Sadly the ISP’s reach here is dismal, but it makes up for that with the best price, that same excellent overall satisfaction rating, and decent speed, which all culminate in the top rating. The uber-ISP Xfinity is a close second, bolstered by having the highest non-satellite coverage of any non-satellite-based ISP in the division—even larger than the reach of T-Mobile.
The fastest speed award for the South Atlantic area goes to Ting, an MVNO and internet fiber provider with services in North Carolina, Maryland, and Virginia.
East South Central Division: Alabama, Kentucky, Mississippi, and Tennessee
Best ISP: Spectrum
Fastest ISP: GFiber
Google’s only stumble across the South happens here, where it cedes the Best ISP title to Spectrum. In fact, even Xfinity scored better than Google in the cumulative index. It is no surprise, as Xfinity won in this division last year. Both were helped by vastly superior coverage ratings, despite GFiber having two perfect 10 scores: one for speed (making it the fastest ISP), and another for price.
West South Central Division: Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Texas
Best ISP: GFiber
Fastest ISP: Ezee Fiber
Last year, Starlink ruled most of the divisions in the South, thanks to its amazing coverage reach, which bolstered its scores. This year, while excellent coverage still helps, Starlink is dragged down by high prices and low speeds. GFiber offers the opposite, with low prices and great speed. It happens again here, landing GFiber the slot for Best.
That said, the fastest ISP in this region isn’t Google’s. GFiber is blown out of the Gulf of Mexico’s waters by Ezee Fiber, a provider based in Houston that provides speeds that are all over 1 gigabit per second (it’s highest tier is 8 gigabits!)
West
Mountain Division: Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming
Best ISP: GFiber
Fastest ISP: Pulse
The Mountain division features another set of repeat winners from last year. GFiber won last year without even factoring in a coverage rating. This time, it gets a nominal coverage rating, improved speed and satisfaction scores, and a perfect price score with the best cost in the area for its top tier.
For speed, people should move to Loveland to enjoy Pulse. Colorado has many great municipality-run ISPs with fiber-to-the-home, delivered as a utility that everyone can get inexpensively. Pulse is also fourth overall on the list of best ISPs for the region.
Pacific Division: Alaska, California, Hawaii, Oregon, and Washington
Best ISP: GFiber
Fastest ISP: Fision by Hotwire
GFiber steals this division's Best ISP award from Starlink as it did for other regions this year. The reasons are the same as noted above: great scores for price, satisfaction, and speed help it overcome terrible coverage.
You’d probably expect Sonic, our national all-around Fastest ISP to take home a trophy for this region, but interestingly, it doesn’t. The PCMag Speed Index's top performer is Fision by Hotwire, a service that specifically targets multi-dwelling units. Its score in other areas of the country apparently drags that stellar speed down nationally, but it is buoyed here to almost a full 1 Gig median speed both up and down in our tests.
Best ISPs for Alaska and Hawaii
Your service options are limited in the two most distant states in the union. For Alaska, the only ISP for which we ever seem to get enough tests to include is GCI, which, by default, puts it at the top of our list. We didn’t even see any Starlink tests up in the North this year. But GCI isn’t a bad choice—it offers decent median download speeds that rival many others and has fiber roll-outs in the state's biggest municipalities.
Hawaii’s best ISP, as always, boils down to a contest between Spectrum and Hawaiian Telecom. We can state unequivocally that Hawaiian Telecom has the superior speed and a slightly better price, while Spectrum has the better reach and satisfaction. With the two pitted that way, Hawaiian Telecom would have two perfect scores and a 22.0 cumulative score, while Spectrum would be at 18.9. As such, the edge this year goes to Hawaiian Telecom.
The Best ISPs for 2024: Full Tables
Here are the complete tables for all the charts above, including the ISPs beyond the top 10 in each location. Access each table using the arrows or the dropdown menu at the top; click the top cell for each column to reorder the rows (click again to reorder in the other direction). You can also search for key words or numbers.
Speeds are based on 340,924 PCMag Speed Test results from US ISP users received between June 1, 2023, and June 6, 2024. For more, read our methodology.