Sparklight Internet Review

Sparklight offers fast internet service at prices that start low but jump up by around $30 per month in the second year of service. You can get either standard or pay-as-you-go plans, and specific offerings vary based on where you live. I like that all plans come without contracts and no hard data caps, but I’m not a fan of the significant year-two price hikes, high startup costs, or steep Wi-Fi equipment rental fees.

Sparklight Freedom plans

How to choose a Sparklight plan

Pay-as-you-go plans are available as part of a Sparklight trial program, and they have some great perks. There are no credit checks, recurring payments, or deposits, and you can set everything up in a mobile app. There are also no installation or Wi-Fi equipment fees, and you get 24/7 access to a virtual assistant.

One potential downside is that you don’t have access to a customer service phone number with these plans. Instead, customers are routed to digital support channels. Sparklight VP of Communications Strategy Trish Niemann told me the following: “If an issue cannot be resolved via digital support, a live associate will follow up with the customer within 24 hours of their inquiry.”

There’s also no guarantee prices will stay low, and the plans aren’t available everywhere but Niemann said Sparklight “plans to continue offering this product and expand its availability in the future.” She added the company is “actively gathering feedback from our Pay-As-You-Go customers regarding their support experience and will use that feedback to continue to ensure a seamless support experience.”

Fiber internet from Sparklight

Sparklight offers fiber-rich cable internet in the vast majority of its footprint, but it also offers 100% fiber internet in a few places. Those cities include the following:

Verde Village, Arizona

Payson, Arizona

Victoria, Texas

Like cable plans, fiber plans go up in price after the first year of service, but there are no required contracts. The good news is that even after the post-promo prices kick in, fiber internet from Sparklight is still reasonably priced.

Sparklight: Best speeds for you

If you live alone or with just one other person, you might be fine with 100Mbps speeds. Bigger households that do a lot of gaming or working online may benefit from speeds of 300 or 600Mbps, but almost no one needs speeds of 1Gbps or faster. There’s no reason to pay for more speed than you need!

All Sparklight plans have unlimited data, but the company will slow your speeds if you use more than 5TB per month. Almost no household will go through that much data in a month, though, so I don’t count the soft cap as a negative.

Sparklight: Notable fees

Sparklight charges quite a few fees when you sign up, and monthly fees can inflate your bill significantly. You’ll also see a credit on your bill for a promotion, which is the discount you’ll get on your plan for the first year of service. It’s confusing, but that will bring the price in your cart back down to advertised prices.

Just be aware that the discount will go away after a year.

Sparklight: Installation, equipment, and contracts

Sparklight charges for both installation and activation; monthly rental fees for Wi-Fi equipment plus an upfront deposit are required. It’s expensive. You’ll pay lower monthly fees and startup costs with most other providers (assuming you can get service where you live).

Sparklight installation

Sparklight sometimes offers a free installation deal for new customers, but it’s not a guarantee. The standard price is $90 for installation plus $30 for activation. If you call to order, we highly recommend asking your sales rep to waive or reduce these fees.

Sparklight Wi-Fi equipment

Sparklight offers a few equipment tiers. The default Advanced Wi-Fi Bundle includes a modem and a three-part mesh node router system, but you only need that if you have a large home with multiple floors. Unfortunately, that’s the default option when you checkout, so be sure to opt out if you don’t want it.

If you don’t have a large home, go for the Ultimate Wi-Fi Bundle with just a modem and one router, or buy your own compatible modem and rent a single router for $10 per month.

Your deposit starts at $25 or $50, depending on which equipment tier you choose. You may be able to get out of it by agreeing to a credit check, but there’s no way to know what your real bill will be until you hand over your social security number.

Sparklight internet contracts

Sparklight doesn’t require contracts on any plan, so you’re free to cancel anytime.

Sparklight: Customer satisfaction

Sparklight took fifth place overall among all internet providers we surveyed and performed as well as or better than average on reliability, customer service, and speed. Customers thought it fell short on price, though, rating it in twelfth place.

Compared to other cable internet providers, Sparklight came in behind Xfinity overall but beat out the rest of the competition. However, its speed and price scores lagged dramatically.

Our in-house customer reviews mirror that assessment—people say they would like faster speeds and lower prices, and some complain about frequent outages and maintenance issues. Overall, they still give Sparklight 4 out of 5 stars.

Sparklight is primarily a rural provider, so you might not have other fully wired internet options where you live. However, AT&T Fiber competes with Sparklight in some areas. If you have the choice, go with AT&T for its stable prices and faster, more reliable connections. You won’t have to deal with nonsense like equipment rental fees or deposits with AT&T, either.

If you’re in a Sparklight area and can’t get AT&T fiber, you might be able to get fixed wireless internet from big national providers including AT&T Air, Verizon 5G Home Internet, and T-Mobile 5G Home Internet. Just remember, if you don’t get a good cell signal from a given provider, you won’t have a strong home internet signal either.

If that’s the case, see if Rise Broadband is available in your area. The company uses a different, older model to provide fixed wireless internet (plus a tiny bit of fiber internet) and may have good coverage at your address.

Read our full reviews of Sparklight vs. the competition

• Sparklight vs. Verizon
• Sparklight vs. AT&T

Final call: Is Sparklight right for you?

The great thing about Sparklight is that it’s available in rural areas where you can’t get service from any other provider. But that’s also the worst thing about it because no competition means no incentive to improve. I really dislike the big price increases in your second year and equipment fees that can almost double your monthly bill, for example. I also remember lots of outages when I had the service back in 2019, and some current customers say reliability is still a problem.

But if you don’t have any other options for internet service, what can you do?

On the bright side, I like Sparklight’s low starting prices and reliable speeds compared to fixed wireless options. Best of all, there are no contracts, so it’s easy to bail as soon as a worthy competitor comes to town.

Sparklight FAQ

Methodology

Our HighSpeedInternet.com editorial team bases our analyses on customer input from our Annual Customer Satisfaction Survey, results from our speed test tool, and proprietary internet provider data on speeds and pricing. To strengthen our research, we look closely at provider contracts to get hard-to-find information on price hikes, data caps, and extra fees, and we keep tabs on the latest news reports and online reviews. When applicable, we also rely on our personal experiences testing these services.

Disclaimers