Speedtest Ranks The Fastest Fixed Broadband and Mobile Internet Service Providers In The US

According to a report released by Speedtest on August 3rd, internet speeds for both mobile and fixed broadband users in the United States are increasing. At the end of June, the average download speed for fixed broadband was 54.97 Mbps (Megabits per second), a 42% increase from the same time last year. Average upload speed for fixed broadband was 18.88 Mbps, a year-to-year increase of 51%.

Mobile internet speed also increased but mobile is markedly slower and the percentage increases from last year were smaller. Average mobile download speed was 19.61 Mbps, a 33% increase over last year. Average upload speed was 7.94 Mbps, a 7.4% increase.

Speedtest also ranked internet service providers in terms of their download and upload speeds. However, care must be taken when considering how Speedtest calculated speed. As you would expect, Speedtest reported average speeds across all service providers for the national averages given in the preceding two paragraphs.

You might also expect that Speedtest would report the average speed for each service provider as well – but that’s not what they did. When Speedtest compared service providers they based their measurements on the top 10% of each provider’s recorded speeds. In other words, 90% of subscribers should expect speeds that are slower than the speeds reported by Speedtest.

Here’s what  Speedtest found for fixed broadband service.

Comcast XFINITY had the highest download speed at 125.53 Mbps. Unlike the other service providers, Verizon provides symmetric upload/download links and their Fios upload speed of 93.64 Mbps was more than the upload speeds of the other five companies combined.

Remember that the speeds in the table are the average of the top 10% of speeds recorded for each service provider. The Speedtest market report contains helpful infographics that give average mobile and fixed broadband speeds for individual cities and states.

For mobile, Speedtest only measured speed on devices that are capable of connecting to LTE networks. Here’s what they found.

Verizon Wireless and T-Mobile are in a dead heat for fastest download speed at 21.11 Mbps and 21.02 Mbsps respectively. T-Mobile’s 11.59 Mbps is more than 40% faster than the other three major service providers which will be of interest to people who are sharing photos on social media from their cell phones.

A slightly different picture emerged when Speedtest looked at download speeds on LTE networks.

Here T-Mobile is the clear winner although Verizon Wireless is not far behind.

You can find out how fast your fixed broadband internet connection is on the Speedtest website.

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