Annual Internet Service Provider Review 2025

Every year, HighSpeedInternet.com compares the nation’s largest internet providers with millions of data points in the areas that matter most to customers: price, speed, reliability, and customer experience. Now that we’re in our fifth year of auditing the industry of internet service, we know that it all boils down to what you’re paying, quality of service, product and knowing you can count on it every day.

With that in mind, our methodology is entirely based on the needs of the customers, focusing on plans, price points, and features that make sense for the average household. Our goal is to provide the shortest path to the best internet experience for your home.

Our Annual Review uses a mix of proprietary and public data sets to compare ISPs. These data sets include performance test results from the HighSpeedInternet.com speed test, internet plan and pricing data from our Internet Plan Index, customer feedback from our annual customer survey, ISP network coverage data from the FCC, outage data from our internet outage log, and additional macro outage data from the IODA outage tracking project.

Speed test data

The HighSpeedInternet.com speed test collects performance data on thousands of internet service providers (ISPs), averaging 45,000 speed tests per day. At the end of the year, we use this data to calculate average and median speeds, latency, and jitter for each ISP in our Annual Review.

Internet Plan Index

We track internet plan pricing, details, and policies for all the major internet providers in the country in our Internet Plan Index. In addition to constant and thorough research, we keep this database as accurate as possible with information provided by the ISPs themselves.

Customer Satisfaction Survey

Our Annual Customer Satisfaction Survey gathers feedback from thousands of customers. This independent and unbiased survey is conducted and analyzed via a third party. This year, we received feedback from 10,000 internet customers, making this our biggest survey to date.

Internet outage data

We use internet outage data to determine the reliability of ISP networks. We maintain our own outage log throughout the year, which we supplement with macro outage data from the Internet Outage Detection and Analysis (IODA) outage tracking project.

Best Overall: Google Fiber

This is the second year in a row that Google Fiber proved to be the best ISP in the country, and we’re pleased to report that this provider hasn’t just maintained its excellence but has reached new highs in 2025.

Google Fiber is one of the fastest ISPs, with a 279Mbps average download speed and a similar median download speed. This is a massive jump ahead of last year’s fastest average speed (238Mbps), and it can’t be dismissed as the internet getting faster overall as most ISPs are still hovering around last year’s performance levels.

Customers have always said good things about Google Fiber, and it broke new ground in this year’s scores. When asked to rate their overall experience with Google Fiber, customers gave the ISP an average of 4.4 out of 5—one of the highest average ratings in this year’s survey and higher than any ranking in last year’s.

We often see new providers surge in popularity with high-value debut deals, only to level out after a few years as the offerings begin to blend into the market. But it’s clear that Google Fiber’s quality isn’t burning out. Every year, Google’s faster and more popular than the last.

Best customer service: Google Fiber

Google Fiber didn’t only prevail as the best overall ISP; it also won best customer service for the second year in a row. Google Fiber customers were more pleased than any other customer base was with their ISP interactions. We are pleased to see America’s top ISP place such a high priority on its customer relationships when most providers are leaning toward automated and impersonal customer service strategies.

Fastest ISP: Brightspeed

At HighSpeedInternet.com, we’re not big on convoluted scoring systems. Speed is simple, and as such, there’s only one way to be the country’s fastest internet provider: have the fastest download speeds.

Brightspeed’s fiber-optic lines outpaced every other provider, achieving the fastest average download speed, fastest median download speed, and the fastest average and median upload speeds. Any way you slice it, Brightspeed is the nation’s fastest internet provider.

For some perspective, last year’s fastest average speed was 238Mbps.

Best Value: Astound Broadband

Every year, when we ask thousands of people what matters most about their internet service, most customers say price is their number one concern. Out of all surveyed categories, price satisfaction is always the lowest.

This year, price satisfaction was still the lowest-rated category, but price ratings overall rose. This made more sense when we crunched the numbers from our Internet Plan Index. Most of the country’s big ISPs offered at least one budget plan at or below $50, but the cable internet giant Astound took things to another level, providing fast 300Mbps speeds for only $20 per month.

We love to see cheap, high-quality broadband, but unfortunately, there’s often a catch: common tricks include painfully short promo periods, eligibility restrictions, and unbearable policies like tiny data caps. We are delighted to say that is not the case with Astound.

The low prices are set for 24 months, one of the longest introductory rate periods there is. Speeds start at a fast 300 Mbps, and the rates stay competitive even at the brand’s top speeds. The cherry on top? Unlimited data, a rarity for cable broadband that’s only available from a few national brands.

Astound doesn’t have just one affordable plan, but several across Astound’s many internet brands like Grande, Wave, and Entouch. These extremely competitive rates across Astound’s entire catalog have firmly earned it the title of Best Value ISP of 2025.

Most Reliable: AT&T

The importance of provider reliability increases every year as more people and crucial services become dependent on near-constant connectivity.

We logged internet outages, scoured databases, and sought customer feedback to gauge the reliability of each provider network, and AT&T came out on top as this year’s most reliable ISP.

Customer’s Choice: Astound Broadband

As much as we like to geek out on performance data, outage logs, and pricing indexes, some measurements of ISP quality can only be asserted by the customers themselves. This year, Astound received the best customer feedback with an outstanding 8.6/10 average overall satisfaction rating.

How did it do it? Excellent pricing. As we’ve covered, Astound’s budget-friendly pricing distinguished the brand above all others in what’s arguably the most important factor to customers. Every year, customers say the same thing: They need practical internet plans at fair prices. Astound met that call with the most competitive plan roster we’ve seen to date; that’s why it is America’s most popular internet provider in 2025.

Final call: It was a good year for internet customers

Overall, it was a good year for America’s internet providers; customer approval is up, with ratings about 20% better than the previous year. We’ve also seen improved performance, with some ISPs showing up to a 40Mbps increase in average download speed.

Fiber is back on top

Cox stunned us last year by achieving faster speeds than technologically superior services like Google Fiber and Verizon Fios. However, it looks like fiber providers are starting to lean into the technology’s near-limitless bandwidth potential. All of the top three fastest ISPs (Brightspeed, Google Fiber, and Verizon) of 2025 are fiber providers and the speed gap between the fiber and cable is huge this year. Fiber is the 2025 king of speed.

Value and pricing are center-stage

Price has always been the customer’s primary concern, and many ISPs responded with stronger deals and more budget plans. The year’s top value ISP, Astound, is the best example, with its array of extremely competitive plans. But the trend isn’t isolated. We’re seeing more budget plans than ever, with only the usual holdouts resisting the trend.

Despite the superior performance of fiber, customers are practically shouting that they care more about price than ever before. We saw Astound receive the best customer feedback overall, not just for its price. Because money and savings are on the minds of so many Americans, we would not be surprised if we saw even relatively expensive providers like Verizon start to introduce sub-$50 internet plans.

Has cable reached its limit?

In the past two years, cable ISPs surprised us with average speeds faster than several fiber providers, but those speed gains seem to be slowing down in 2025. While fiber ISPs like Google Fiber and Brightspeed are seeing massive upticks, the fastest cable ISPs are seeing more modest performance improvements in the single digits.

We had high hopes for cable speeds this year with the introduction of DOCSIS 4.0 and other big tech advances for cable internet. It’s not easy implementing fundamental upgrades on such large-scale networks, so it may take a while before we see significant speed improvements from cable ISPs.

Our provider reviews over the years

• Annual Internet Service Provider Review 2024
• Best Value Internet Providers 2024: Frontier
• Fastest Internet Providers in 2024
• 2023 Customer Satisfaction Survey
• 2022’s Best Internet Providers in Customer Satisfaction
• 2021 Internet Customer Satisfaction Report