Ookla

Satellite internet is making headlines across the globe as Starlink continues to launch service in new countries and Viasat plans to acquire Inmarsat.

While six large internet service providers (ISPs) dominate the United States fixed broadband market, Ookla's Speedtest Intelligence reveals smaller providers are sometimes the fastest ISPs in a given state in the Midwest, South and West. This analysis examines US states in which smaller ISPs were the fastest fixed broadband providers during Q3 2021. Major findings include:

Tribal lands in the United States have often been sidelined or simply excluded from decisions critical to funding infrastructure initiatives and improvements. As COVID-19 revealed the internet to be an essential utility for daily life, the internet served as a lifeline and an opportunity for people living on reservations and other Tribal lands to connect with education, telehealth resources, businesses and the “at large” community.

Speedtest by Ookla analyzed how much internet speeds have increased over the past four years, and which countries have seen some of the largest gains. Major findings include:

Starlink is still in beta phase, but Ookla decided to use data from Speedtest Intelligence to investigate Q1 2021 performance in the US and Canada to see if the program is living up to expectations. In the US  during Q1 2021, median download speeds from Starlink ranged from 40.36 Mbps in Columbia County, Oregon to 93.09 Mbps in Shasta County, California.

Speedtest Intelligence reveals AT&T was the fastest mobile operator in the US in Q2 2020 with a Speed Score of 41.23 on modern chipsets in competitive geographies. T-Mobile was the second fastest, Sprint third and Verizon Wireless fourth. Although Sprint merged with T-Mobile earlier in 2020, Ookla considered the companies’ performance separately as the networks have not been fully integrated. We will combine their results when the integration is complete.