Fastest Internet Providers of 2025: Avoid Slowdowns and Lag with These Picks

Our take: Google Internet is our best overall provider, and for good reason: It’s a great deal, and its speeds make Sonic the Hedgehog look like a joke.

“My family is on the Google Fiber 1 Gig plan, and we love it,” says my colleague Kelly Huh. She and her husband live with his parents in Provo, Utah, and there are usually also visitors staying with her in-laws. “Even with 10 people in the house, I’ve never noticed it slow down or disconnect.”

Google Fiber is also a flat-out amazing deal. You don’t pay any extra fees for data, equipment, installation, or anything else. Everything is included in the blanket price, which starts at $70 for 1,000Mbps.

Google Fiber isn’t available all over the U.S. yet; you can mostly find it in big cities and technology havens. But those who have it—like Kelly—love it. Read our Google Fiber review.

The frequency of Google Fiber outages seems to be location specific. Some customers in Salt Lake City complain on Reddit of nearly daily outages, while others rarely have blips.

Google Fiber has an outage tracker for curious customers’ use.

Google Fiber customer service is quite good, according to my former coworker Tyler Abbott.

“All of my personal interactions with Google Fiber customer service have been surprisingly easy,” writes Tyler in his Google Fiber review. “I recently called Google Fiber (on a Tuesday morning) to test out their customer service … I talked to a real, easy-to-understand person within two minutes.”

Google Fiber connects to houses through fiber-optic cables. (That’s why Google Fiber is considered a fiber-to-the-home [FTTH] provider.) Technicians prewire the cable to a box outside a house or apartment in a process called a “drop install.” Lastly, a fiber jack is added to the structure to connect the house to the fiber setup.

Our take: Verizon Fios isn’t fast enough to beat Google Fiber in Mario Kart, but based on its speeds, it takes a solid second in our lineup.

“I regularly enjoy superfast speeds, which are essential for my personal and work activities,” says Verizon Fios customer Laviet Joaquin.

And speed isn’t all that Fios offers customers. It’s known to be quite reliable, and its $49.99 300Mbps fiber plan is a stellar deal. If you want to save even more money, you can combine Fios Internet with Verizon cell service for a significant internet discount.

Verizon Fios’s biggest drawback is that it’s available only on the East Coast. But those who are eligible can enjoy the rapid, no-fuss service. Read our Verizon Fios review.

Yes, Verizon Fios 300Mbps is fast enough for most home internet needs (especially since it’s fiber). Only a small percentage of internet users, such as those who frequently send large media files, need faster service.

The cheapest Verizon Fios package is the Fios 300 Mbps fiber plan. For $50 a month (with AutoPay), you get 300Mbps of swift fiber internet.

Yes, like all internet providers, Verizon Fios experiences some outages. However, there’s no reason to believe Fios has an unusually large number of outages—in fact, it seems to have fewer outages than some competitors. “I’ve never had to call them for an issue,” says Fios customer Thomas H.

Our take: Cable internet provider Cox Internet takes the metaphorical bronze medal in internet speed, beating out most fiber providers. While its advertised speeds are slower than fiber providers like Google Fiber or Verizon Fios, its actual speeds keep up nicely.

“I never notice any problems with internet speed,” says Cox customer M. J. Stevens in San Diego.

“The speed seems fine most of the time unless all of our kids are home on their devices at once,” adds Lindsey Scotney, a Cox Internet customer in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Cox gets expensive—starting at $50 for 100Mbps, which is the internet service provider equivalent of highway robbery. 500Mbps, which I recommend for Cox customers, costs an eye-popping $90. But buyers do catch some breaks, like free Wi-Fi equipment for the first 14 months and no-cost self-installation. Read our Cox Internet review.

Cox’s internet speed plans are the same in all its service areas: 100–2,000Mbps.

Cox Internet customer service could use some improvement, according to customers. "The customer service representatives are a very mixed bag," says Audrey, a Cox Internet customer in Louisiana.

A Cox Internet Go Super Fast package costs $110 each month for 1,000Mbps. If that sounds too expensive, Cox offers less expensive plans.

Our take: Xfinity Internet is available in 35 states—and it’s much faster than you would expect from a cable provider, netting itself fourth place in the lineup.

My colleague Jacob Scholl and his fiancée have had Xfinity Internet since moving into their home. The pair have a 300Mbps plan for working from home, streaming movies and TV, and surfing.

“In my living room, where our router is located, my speed test showed a reading of 341Mbps—which was surprisingly high,” says Jacob, although results were lower in other parts of the house.

My editor Peter Holslin has a different Xfinity experience. He shares internet service with his landlord, who is “budget-conscious and settles for one of Xfinity's lower-tier packages.”

With that lower tier comes lower speeds. “My download speeds usually clock in at around 75–100Mbps,” says Peter, “but that's enough to handle work needs, Zoom calls, and streaming movies and shows on my TV, even when I split bandwidth with three others.”

Xfinity Internet includes automatic price hikes, which is annoying, but its wide availability makes it a great option for almost everyone. At Reviews.org, we even consider it the top internet provider for senior citizens. Read our Xfinity Internet review.

The Xfinity Internet plans near you should mostly be the same, regardless of location. But if you live in a western state that Xfinity serves, you have the option of signing up for a Gigabit X2 plan, which provides up to 2,000Mbps.

You should have at least 200Mbps with Xfinity, although I recommend the 500Mbps Fast plan for most households.

Xfinity Internet might not work for a variety of reasons, including equipment issues, network-wide outages, or an out-of-date account.

Our take: Cable and fiber provider Spectrum Internet rounds out the lineup as the fifth-fastest internet provider with an average actual download speed of 216.73Mbps.

“Spectrum services have worked great for me, and the high-speed internet helps with my WFH job,” says Domonic H., a Spectrum customer who left a review at HighSpeedInternet.com.

Spectrum’s fiber locations are something of a mystery, and there’s no reliable way to check if you’re eligible for its fiber service except, perhaps, calling to sign up. But almost everyone can get Spectrum internet service of some kind—the network is that prolific. And although the service has automatic price hikes, the starting prices are such a bargain that it may be worth signing up now and canceling later. Read our Spectrum Internet review.

No, AT&T doesn’t own Spectrum. In the past, AT&T has purchased broadband spectrum to accommodate its network, but it hasn’t bought Spectrum Internet or Spectrum Mobile.

Spectrum Internet’s average download speed is 216.73Mbps. Its average upload speed is 19.43Mbps.

You can know if Spectrum is down in your area by opening the My Spectrum app and checking the outage alerts. If you aren’t a Spectrum customer, the app isn’t accessible to you.

Google Fiber takes the cake when it comes to fast internet. It has some of the fastest advertised speeds—up to 8,000Mbps—plus the highest average actual download speed, 266.38Mbps. And if that’s not enough, Google Fiber is also one of the most cost-effective internet options—all fees and costs are included in one flat price, something that I wish I could also say about the other fastest providers.

Another fiber service, Verizon Fios, comes in second place with an average download speed of 250.84Mbps. Verizon Fios is reasonably priced and doesn’t force you to start with a full 1,000Mbps, something too many fiber providers are guilty of.

The other three providers are all cable or mostly-cable services, starting with Cox Internet. Cox’s average download speed is 242.63Mbps. While it’s pretty expensive—$50 for just 100Mbps—it clearly delivers instead of just taking customers’ money and running.

Xfinity Internet ranks just under Cox Internet: Its average download speed is 242.61Mbps, just .02Mbps lower. Right or wrong, Xfinity Internet’s parent company Comcast gets a bad rap, but its internet service is actually decent most of the time, and it obviously doesn’t skimp on the speeds.

Spectrum Internet comes in fifth place with an average download speed of 216.73Mbps— still very fast but the slowest option on our fastest internet provider spectrum (ba-dum-tiss!). Spectrum is a good deal until its price hikes kick in, but its main benefit is its large service area in 41 out of 50 states.

Although not every internet provider can be in the top five, that doesn’t mean there aren’t other fast options. Here are the six other internet providers that ranked on our list. (Since we only counted providers with 10,000 or results on our proprietary speed test, not every ISP ranked.)

If none of our fastest providers are available where you live, don’t worry! Just aim to sign up with a fiber or cable internet provider that gives you speeds of 300Mbps or faster for a price that fits your budget. Home internet costs about $81 a month on average, but you can get decent Wi-Fi for less in many parts of the country.

You can also run a search with your zip code below to see what internet options are available in your area.

When looking for fast internet, I recommend first considering internet types: Fiber, 5G, cable, satellite, or DSL. Fiber or cable tends to rank higher speedwise than other options, so it’s best to go with one of those if you can.

Definitely consider advertised speeds (the speeds that providers list on their plans). That gives you a good idea of what’s possible. But don’t forget to look at average actual speeds if they’re available—like the ones in our table below.

The speed rankings in this table are based solely on the download rate, which is the most important piece of the internet speed puzzle. We only ranked providers that we had 10,000+ results for, so some celebrated internet service providers aren’t on this list.

Looking for the fastest Wi-Fi not just in the U.S. but in the world? According to World Population Review, the United States has the fifth-fastest internet of 2024, coming about 55Mbps below the top contender, the United Arab Emirates. Singapore, Hong Kong, and Chile all rank above the U.S. as well.

Interestingly, the United States median internet speed is 242.27Mbps. In other words, four out of our top five fastest ISPs in this piece have quicker average speeds than the U.S. median internet speed.

Sign up for one of our recommended providers and leave your previous internet service in the dust!