Sparklight vs. Verizon: Which Internet Provider Is Best for You?

Compare Sparklight and Verizon head to head

Sparklight and Verizon are both great internet service providers (ISPs), but Verizon pulls ahead with top-notch fiber internet service, excellent customer ratings, and perks like unlimited data. You may be able to get a great deal from Sparklight, too, but it heavily depends on the plans offered in your area.

Pros and cons: Sparklight vs. Verizon

Jump to: Plans and pricing | Extra fees | Customer ratings | Bundles | Internet types | Data caps | Contracts | Installation | Availability

Jump to:

• Plans and pricing
• Extra fees
• Customer ratings
• Bundles
• Internet types
• Data caps
• Contracts
• Installation
• Availability

Plans and pricing: Sparklight vs. Verizon

Sparklight plans and pricing

Sparklight’s best deals are, without a doubt, its Freedom Connect internet plans. Our favorites are the Freedom Connect 600 and Freedom Connect Gig. Each offers a lot of bandwidth for the money and unlimited data.

Verizon plans and pricing

Verizon offers fiber and 5G fixed wireless internet. We recommend going with fiber if it’s available because it’s the fastest and most reliable internet connection you can get. Verizon’s Fios 300 Mbps plan packs the most bang for your buck, with triple the speed of similarly priced Sparklight plans.

If you can’t get Verizon fiber internet, its 5G Home Internet plan is a good option, which delivers the same fast speeds and unlimited data as the Fios 300 Mbps plan. You don’t get the symmetrical bandwidth of fiber—in exchange, you get the convenience of a completely wireless internet setup.

Extra fees: Sparklight vs. Verizon

The biggest difference between Sparklight and Verizon fees is the installation cost. Technically, Verizon’s installation is much more expensive, but it’s easy to avoid by simply ordering your services online. Sparklight’s activation fee is the opposite: It’s not very expensive, but there’s no getting out of it. Sparklight does say it’ll reduce the activation fee if you opt for self installation, but you won’t know if that’s an option until you order your service.

Verizon’s router rental is also a bit more, however, this only applies to its fiber plans. Verizon’s 5G Home Internet comes with a free rental gateway.

Customer ratings: Sparklight vs. Verizon

Verizon is one of the top-performing ISPs in our annual customer satisfaction survey—its reliability ratings have topped the charts for two years in a row. And overall, Verizon customers rated it the second-highest-rated ISP.

That isn’t to say Sparklight didn’t receive good feedback: It consistently placed in the top half of every category. From a customer satisfaction standpoint, both ISPs are safe bets.

Best TV and internet combos

Verizon doesn’t offer a traditional discount when pairing services. Instead, you can add TV, streaming services, and other perks to your internet service at any time. Verizon’s list of perks includes a Walmart+ membership (with Paramount+), Unlimited Cloud Storage, and more.

Like its internet plans, Sparklight’s bundles vary considerably, depending on your location.

Internet types: Sparklight vs. Verizon

Verizon offers fiber and 5G fixed wireless internet, which are very different. Fiber internet runs over fiber-optic cables. It’s capable of faster speeds (especially upload speed), lower latency, and better reliability compared to cable internet. But it’s also harder to find. Fiber infrastructure is expensive, so its availability is limited.

Verizon’s 5G fixed wireless internet runs via cell towers. Because the service is completely wireless, fixed wireless internet is easy to set up and maintain—you can usually set it up yourself without much trouble. Additionally, fixed wireless internet received the highest ratings in our annual customer satisfaction survey.

Sparklight provides cable internet, which is the primary internet type in the U.S. It’s also very fast and reliable, and because it uses the same infrastructure used previously for cable TV, it’s widely available.

All in all, you probably wouldn’t notice a big difference between any of these three internet types, but if you have a choice, fiber is the best and most robust type of internet connection you can get.

Data caps: Sparklight vs. Verizon

If you get Verizon, you won’t be counting gigabytes. All Verizon internet plans come with unlimited data, plain and simple.

Sparklight’s data cap policies vary depending on the plan. Some offer unlimited data, and others have some of the smallest data caps we’ve seen (700GB) for cable internet.

Contracts: Sparklight vs. Verizon

Both Verizon and Sparklight offer month to month contracts that you can cancel at any time.

Installation: Sparklight vs. Verizon

Verizon’s installation is more expensive, but you can order your service online, which waives the fee. Sparklight’s installation fee is technically an activation fee. You can’t get out of it, but Sparklight will reduce the activation fee if you opt for a self-installation.

Availability: Sparklight vs. Verizon

According to the FCC, Sparklight’s cable internet is available mostly in the South and the Midwest, with smaller coverage areas in the Southwest, Idaho, and North Dakota.

Verizon’s Fios Fiber Internet is limited to the north eastern parts of the U.S, with huge coverage areas in New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Maryland, Virginia, and Pennsylvania.

Verizon’s 5G Home Internet has an incredibly vast coverage area that spans across the entire U.S.

Final call: Sparklight vs. Verizon

We recommend you go with Verizon Fios (fiber) internet if you can get it. There’s just too much value to ignore with its great speeds, unlimited data, and symmetrical bandwidth—all backed by a fiber connection with one of the nation’s top-rated ISPs.

The choice between Verizon 5G Home Internet and Sparklight isn’t as easy. If you can’t get one of Sparklight’s Freedom Connect plans, you’re better off with Verizon’s 5G. If you can get a Sparklight Freedom Connect plan, it’s a good option for fast speeds and unlimited data. While it’s a bit more expensive than Verizon’s 5G, the connection is likely to be a bit more stable.

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.

More about Sparklight and Verizon

• Verizon 5G Home Internet Review
• How To Set up Verizon 5G Home Internet