EarthLink offers reliable internet service across the U.S.—but you can find cheaper options that are just as good.
An Honest EarthLink Internet Review, According to Customers
EarthLink internet stands out due to its availability, plan flexibility, and overage fees. The Atlanta-based company offers internet services using rebranded network space it leases from other providers, so you can get it almost anywhere. And you usually have a bunch of different plans to choose from. Plus, some customers we spoke with gave EarthLink a thumbs up.
“EarthLink's dependable service has kept me loyal,” says Kasandra Grant, a casino blogger and EarthLink customer in Las Vegas. “The seamless experience and dependability outweigh the potential benefits of switching.”
Still, EarthLink services cost more than the major internet providers it rents networks from. In most cases, customers could (and should) choose the cheaper, identical options over EarthLink.
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Get to know EarthLink: Plans and pricing
Earthlink Internet offers both DSL and fiber plans on its website. DSL plans start at 3Mbps download speed for $59.95 per month, up to 75Mbps for $64.95 per month. Fiber plans start at 100Mbps symmetrical speed for $59.95 per month, and up to 5Gbps for $189.95 per month. All plans come with unlimited data (yay, no overage fees!), but that’s where the party ends. Customers also have to cough up fees for installation, activation, and/or equipment rental. If you choose to prematurely cancel your contract (yes, sorry, there's a 12 month contract), you’re on the hook for up to $200 in cancellation fees.
Which plan is right for you?
The best and most cost-efficient EarthLink plan for most people is the Fiber 300 plan. Fiber is the fastest and the most reliable type of internet connection. All fiber plans offer symmetrical speed, which means both upload speeds and download speeds are the same. This is great because you can browse the internet and stream Netflix shows seamlessly, as well as upload videos to social media quickly. Getting at least 300Mbps is also a decent speed for most average households, and can support three people streaming on multiple devices, playing online games, or video calling at the same time.
EarthLink fees for modem and installation
Installation fee
$19.95
Fixed wireless activation fee
$79.95
Equipment rental fee
$14.95/mo.
Cancellation fee
Up to $200
Data as of 04/17/2024.
What makes this review legit?
Our fact-based research process centers on interviews with internet customers across the country, helping us understand how internet services hold up against diverse needs and challenges.
To put together this review, we spoke to three EarthLink customers, tracked down an EarthLink pricing sheet, and painstakingly pored over Reddit, BBB, and ConsumerAffairs comments.
Our breakdown of EarthLink Internet features
For all our internet reviews, we give a rating based on three main criteria—speed and reliability, dollar value, and customer experience—which we then average to make an overall score.
Want to know how EarthLink stacks up? See our full take below.
Speed and reliability
EarthLink covers so much ground with its multiple offerings that it’s hard to gauge speed or reliability. The company offers fiber, DSL, satellite, and fixed wireless, all of which offer vastly different experiences. You get a much faster connection with fiber than with DSL or satellite; and fixed wireless falls somewhere in between.
According to HighSpeedInternet.com’s customer satisfaction survey, EarthLink gets below-average scores for internet speed. The provider tied in last place for speed satisfaction with CenturyLink, Frontier, and Optimum. Customers that Reviews.org spoke to also say the service isn’t dependable enough. “My son is a gamer, and he said he had issues. It was a slow download speed,” says Leslie Aromy, a nail technician and one-time EarthLink customer in Waveland, Mississippi.
Still, you’re likely going to get excellent performance from EarthLink if you have a fiber internet connection. Kasandra Grant in Las Vegas went with EarthLink's fiber service because she needed internet "that could keep up with the high stakes and fast pace of online casinos." She says her 100Mbps plan isn't the cheapest, but she's okay with paying more for the dependability EarthLink provides her.
Why does EarthLink speed vary so much based on connection type?
Fiber is the fastest internet connection out there. Its fiber-optic cables allow information to travel much faster than it does through phone lines, radio waves, or satellite signals.
EarthLink uses all four methods, so your speed may be significantly slower or faster depending on which internet type you sign up for.
Dollar value
EarthLink delivers solid services to a lot of customers, and you get solid value thanks to the unlimited data and lack of seasonal price hikes. Grant, who went with the EarthLink Fiber 100Mbps plan at $59.95 per month, feels she gets her money’s worth: “The plan's unlimited data cap ensures that my extensive online activities remain uninterrupted.”
Still, it’s worth noting that EarthLink usually costs more than other internet options. In fact, EarthLink plans often cost more than the exact same plans offered by the original provider. For example, AT&T’s 500Mbps fiber plan costs $65 a month through AT&T but $79.95 a month with EarthLink. That’s nearly 25% more per month without 25% more value. As the kids say—oof. (At least there are no automatic price hikes.)
While you get unlimited data for EarthLink’s prices, you don’t get much else extra to make the price tag worth it. You have to pay additional fees if you want to use some of EarthLink’s perks, like its child online monitoring service, EarthLink Guardian.
Customer experience
Based on customer experience and survey results, it seems that EarthLink’s customer service is all right at best, but awful at worst. On the HighSpeedInternet.com customer satisfaction survey, EarthLink tied with Optimum for the lowest-rated customer service and lowest score for overall satisfaction.
Grant says her experience has been mixed, and the quality of the customer service response has varied across different issues she's had. Overall, she feels her interactions with EarthLink are mostly positive, although she believes "the customer service can be more responsive, especially during peak gaming hours."
Former EarthLink DSL customer Jeannie K. in Blue Ridge, Virginia, has a more disappointing story. “They sent me the equipment, I self-installed, and it never worked,” she laments. “It took weeks and many phone calls to cancel and get my charges reversed.”
In the end, the best thing about the EarthLink customer experience is its widespread availability, which allows customers to keep their internet service almost everywhere.
How long it took to get a real human on the phone: My lack of a phone number associated with an EarthLink account foiled my attempt to reach a live human. You need an account to advance through the automated phone tree.
How the chat service is: It quickly became clear that the chatbot couldn't help me. Instead, it connected me with a live agent, Sasha F. Unfortunately, Sasha F. said she couldn't answer basic questions about the service plans. She wanted to connect me to the sales team, which seemed premature. Oh, and I had to give my name and number just to use the chat line.
Overall quality
3.2/5.0
EarthLink carries internet all across the country, but it costs so much compared to other services that customers would need a lot more to get their money’s worth.
EarthLink add-ons and perks
EarthLink Guardian parental monitoring service
Call EarthLink to sign up
EarthLink Protect identity theft protection
Call EarthLink to sign up
EarthLink EasyTech remote technical support
Call EarthLink to sign up
EarthLink Online Backup
Call EarthLink to sign up
What do customers think of EarthLink?
EarthLink’s customer experience can be summed up in one word: Inconsistent.
Kasandra Grant is all about EarthLink—she feels it’s an excellent choice to keep her connected in her career in casino blogging. “There's a lot to like about EarthLink, but as an online casino player, the consistent speed and uptime are what set it apart,” she says.
Dan Fugardi, the CEO of beauty company Instyler Brands, also has only good things to say about EarthLink. “I've used EarthLink for one service or another for most of the last couple decades, and it has always served me well,” says Fugardi, who has a 300Mbps+ EarthLink plan at his home in the Los Angeles suburb of Marina del Rey. “I can't say I've ever had one of the nightmare stories that I've heard or experienced with bigger service providers.”
But Jeannie K. in Blue Ridge, Virginia, was left frustrated when EarthLink promised her DSL in an area that couldn’t receive it. A retired paralegal, Jeannie signed up for the service a few months ago, but it never worked for her. She had to contact EarthLink several times to have the equipment removed and get her money back.
“It turns out that our overhead telephone lines were no longer operational,” she says. “Shortly after, our telephone lines stopped working too.”
Leslie Aromy in Waveland, Mississippi had a similarly frustrating experience. She realized after a month with EarthLink that with only one weekday off, she couldn’t reliably contact EarthLink customer support about issues—of which she ran into many.
“I qualified for the ACP discount,” Aromy says. “The first time [EarthLink] charged my bank, they didn’t charge me the right amount, so when I tried to call them, I couldn’t get in touch with a person who could actually help me.”
After months of trying to disconnect the service and disputing post-cancellation charges, Aromy still isn’t sure whether EarthLink will try to charge her again. “So I had to get a disconnect confirmation number. I go to my bank; they put a stop with automatic withdrawal on my account. Hopefully, at least if they do it again, I have the number so the bank can dispute it.”
Need to contact EarthLink customer service or tech support?
Try one of these:
- Call 1-888-327-8454
- Use this chat line
- Download EarthLink Wireless Home (not to be confused with myEarthLink, an email app)
What network is EarthLink on?
EarthLink Internet has an unusual setup. It’s like an MVNO for internet service. It pays other internet companies so it can use their infrastructure to offer plans in EarthLink’s name. EarthLink uses AT&T, CenturyLink, Frontier, and Verizon, with T-Mobile listed on EarthLink’s website as an additional “provider we trust.”
This unusual approach allows EarthLink to offer a wide range of plans, including several fiber options, DSL, satellite, and fixed wireless. There are also satellite and 5G/4G LTE plans available, but you need to call to inquire.
Unlike an MVNO, EarthLink usually costs more than the networks it uses. You typically get a better deal from the leasing providers themselves.
Where is EarthLink available?
Because EarthLink piggybacks off existing networks, it has more location leeway than other services. You can find it throughout the Lower 48 (although not in every city).
If you’re not sure whether you live in an EarthLink area, you can check using our zip finder below.
EarthLink vs. the competition
There’s no way around it: EarthLink is more expensive than most of the competition.
EarthLink takes already high internet prices and jacks them up, ostensibly to cover the cost of renting other providers’ networks. And what do you get out of it? Good question. EarthLink offers very little that you don’t already get through its leasing providers.
However, one irreplaceable benefit of EarthLink is its availability. Because EarthLink rents networks from other companies, its presence is widespread. You can likely take your service with you when you move, even if you go from a big city to a rural area. That's a significant advantage if you want to avoid the hassle of switching internet companies.
EarthLink Internet FAQ
EarthLink’s fiber plans are good for streaming. While EarthLink’s 100Mbps fiber internet plan is fast enough for streaming shows, the 300Mbps fiber internet plan and higher are even better, enabling you to watch HD streaming without buffering.
EarthLink’s DSL plans are also good enough for streaming, but you might find it slows down or buffers if you have multiple users streaming at the same time. An SD video (480p) only requires 5Mbps, an HD video (1080p) requires 10–25Mbps, and 4K video (2160p) requires about 25–100Mbps download speed.
EarthLink Internet is not owned by AT&T, but it does pay other internet companies like AT&T to use their infrastructure and offer plans in EarthLink’s name.
We get mixed reviews from EarthLink customers about EarthLink’s customer service. Some customers tell Reviews.org that they have mostly positive interactions with EarthLink, while others feel that it is difficult to get issues resolved in a timely manner.
Your EarthLink internet may be slow depending on the internet connection type you signed up for. Fiber is the fastest internet connection, while DSL is the slowest.
EarthLink also rents its bandwidth from other providers, so your speed may be slower depending on the area.
Check your internet speed using our speed test. On the same webpage, we also share tips for how to speed up your internet.
Want EarthLink? Find it in your area.
If EarthLink sounds like your one true internet love, you can check below to see if it's available.