Internet Providers In My Area by Zip Code » Compare Deals & Save

By Bill Uliss | November 2, 2021

Find Every Internet Provider In Your Area

All wired internet service providers including AT&T, Xfinity, Spectrum, CenturyLink, Cox, and Frontier offer internet in select areas. Unlike cell phone service, which is available nationwide through carriers such as AT&T, T-Mobile, Verizon, and Sprint – wired internet connections like DSL, Cable, and Fiber have limited availability. Many wired and wireless internet providers may be available near you, but the fastest speeds cannot always reach every home. Internet speeds depend on your chosen plan, your internet connection type, how far away from the network you live, and the performance of your wifi router.

Which broadband provider is best in my area?

Every Internet Service Provider (ISP) has a different footprint and coverage map of where they can provide internet services. Even if an internet provider can offer service near you, they may not be able to connect your home to their wired network due to technical limitations on cabling distance. Although wired connections internet connections through Fiber, DSL, and Cable are best, you can still get internet service from a Fixed Wireless or Satellite provider. Broadband and fast internet connections degrade the farther away you live from the providers’ network. If your home is outside of the city limits, or in a rural area, you might not have access to a wired internet connection. Wireless internet connections need unobstructed views to nearby towers and satellites in space, or they can have slow performance when there are line-of-sight obstructions such as trees and mountains.

Who has the best Internet service?

The best internet provider in each area depends on your individual needs. Best could mean you want the cheapest, no commitment and a month-to-month contract, or more likely, the fastest download and upload speeds, and your final choice will vary based on your goal. Let’s assume that by best you mean the fastest internet provider with service to your home, here are some tips to remember for choosing the best type of internet connection:

  1. Fiber-Optic connections are the best, in terms of fastest available broadband speeds, compared to all other types of internet connections.
  2. If Fiber-To-The-Home (FTTH) or Fiber-To-The-Premises (FTTP) is not available to you, then Cable is the best.
  3. If Fiber and Cable are not available, then DSL is best.
  4. If you can’t get DSL, or if the DSL speed available to you is too slow for your needs, Wireless and Satellite may be the best option. Wireless ISPs are best for when your home is too far off the grid for a wired connection.

Who are the internet providers in my area?

Internet service networks connect to homes by phone lines, coaxial cable, optical fiber, wireless antennas, and satellite dishes. The InMyArea.com team analyzed data for every city in the US and found that each one has an average of 3 wired internet providers, but most homes can only get service from one or two providers. Whether you have recently moved and need your utilities connected for the first time, you are buying a home and want to verify your family can have a fast internet connection, or you’ve had a bad experience with your current provider and are looking to change, InMyArea.com can help you find all the internet providers in your area.

InMyArea.com searches through hundreds of millions of data points and shows which providers are available plus their availability percentage (how much they cover your surrounding area). The provider with the highest coverage percent is the most likely to be available at your address, but they may not be the fastest internet option in your area.

Who is behind InMyArea.com?

InMyArea.com is a home services comparison website built by a team of designers, programmers, developers, data scientists, and military veterans passionate about connecting people. Our team has decades of aggregate involvement with Internet Service Providers and a desire to provide users with the best possible online experience. In 2014, we reorganized our efforts, analyzed 10 million broadband records and greatly improved the accuracy of our results. Since then, our data has grown to over 100 million records, and we continue to make advancements in data analysis by enhancing our system’s performance. We built InMyArea.com to help our family, friends, and neighbors find the providers in their area when they move, need to save money, or want to change providers.

As Seen In

We help educate our users and explain the options every day. Here are the latest reviews from people we talked to this week:

How InMyArea.com works

We analyze hundreds of millions of rows of data in real-time, examine every street, city and zip code in the United States, calculate how likely you are to be connected by each provider, check the speeds available, and display the results. We will show you a list of providers, plans, speeds, and prices including Fiber, Cable, DSL, Satellite, Wireless, and Cellular providers. We’ll even throw in the nearby public places with free Wi-Fi for you to access the internet while you wait for the installation of your service.

You can find your internet providers by searching InMyArea.com. Enter your ZIP code, address, or share your device’s location to find wired connections from Fiber-Optic, DSL, and Cable providers, and check availability of wireless providers from Satellite and Fixed Wireless connections available in your area.

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What is considered broadband?

Broadband includes DSL, Cable, Fiber-Optic, Wireless, and Satellite connection types. According to the FCC, broadband is a minimum download speed of 25 Mbps and 3 Mbps upload. Netflix recommends 25 Mbps (Megabits per second) download speed for playing movies and TV shows at Ultra HD quality. If you have four simultaneous users sharing the connection, you need at least 100 Mbps to give each user 25 Mbps to stream, play online games, or download files. The fastest internet speeds are available from Fiber-Optic and Cable connections, up to 1000 Mbps (1 Gbps). Fast internet speeds, those over 25 Mbps, are usually rare in the country, rural areas, and small towns.

Fiber, from providers such as Verizon, AT&T, Frontier, CenturyLink and Google, is available in select metro areas and offers speeds up to 1 Gbps and beyond. Cable is another internet service, from providers including Xfinity, Spectrum, Cox, Optimum, Mediacom and RCN, with speeds ranging from 50 Mbps to 2 Gbps. DSL technology is the most popular internet service and includes providers such as AT&T, CenturyLink, Verizon, Frontier and Windstream, and speeds between 1.5 to 100 Mbps.

Is Fiber Internet available in my area?

Fiber-Optic Service (FiOS) is the fastest type of connection with max speeds ranging from 500 Mbps to 1 Gbps (1000 Mbps). However, fiber is expensive for ISPs to install and deploy, and as a result, it is the least available type of internet connection. You can consider yourself lucky if you live in an area with a fiber connection, however, based on our analysis and press releases, providers will continue to deploy and expand their fiber infrastructures to connect more consumers. These are the Fiber optic providers with the most coverage throughout the United States:

  1. att has fiber coverage in 21 states, available to an estimated 15,680,351 homes, 12.23% of the US population.
  2. Verizon has fiber coverage in 10 states, available to an estimated 14,020,009 homes, 11.26% of the US population.
  3. EarthLink has fiber coverage in 21 states, available to an estimated 13,689,833 homes, 10.81% of the US population.
  4. CenturyLink has fiber coverage in 36 states, available to an estimated 10,571,655 homes, 8.11% of the US population.
  5. Frontier has fiber coverage in 6 states, available to an estimated 3,772,510 homes, 3.09% of the US population.
  6. Windstream has fiber coverage in 18 states, available to an estimated 1,537,490 homes.
  7. C Spire has fiber coverage in 4 states, available to an estimated 1,289,309 homes.
  8. Google Fiber has fiber coverage in 9 states, available to an estimated 1,179,467 homes.
  9. MetroNet has fiber coverage in 7 states, available to an estimated 911,450 homes.
  10. Cincinnati Bell has fiber coverage in 3 states, available to an estimated 658,404 homes.
  11. Consolidated Communications has fiber coverage in 14 states, available to an estimated 571,378 homes.
  12. Optimum has fiber coverage in 4 states, available to an estimated 568,978 homes.
  13. Ziply Fiber has fiber coverage in 2 states, available to an estimated 562,541 homes.
  14. ACDnet has fiber coverage in 1 states, available to an estimated 530,444 homes.

Who has the best cable and Internet service?

Cable Internet connects to more homes than Fiber. Even though download and upload speeds aren’t as fast as Fiber, Cable can still reach speeds of 1 Gbps (1000 Mbps). Cable internet speeds are faster than DSL, have lower latency, and have higher data allowances included in plans. The largest Cable companies in the United States are:

  1. Xfinity has cable coverage in 40 states, available to an estimated 47,447,005 homes, 36.37% of the US population.
  2. Charter has cable coverage in 42 states, available to an estimated 43,248,666 homes, 33.27% of the US population.
  3. Cox Cable has cable coverage in 19 states, available to an estimated 8,781,879 homes, 6.78% of the US population.
  4. Optimum has cable coverage in 4 states, available to an estimated 4,543,422 homes, 3.87% of the US population.
  5. WOW! has cable coverage in 9 states, available to an estimated 3,135,224 homes.
  6. Mediacom has cable coverage in 22 states, available to an estimated 2,967,778 homes.
  7. Suddenlink has cable coverage in 17 states, available to an estimated 2,599,721 homes.
  8. RCN has cable coverage in 7 states, available to an estimated 2,011,585 homes.
  9. Cable ONE has cable coverage in 21 states, available to an estimated 1,888,003 homes.
  10. MetroCast has cable coverage in 13 states, available to an estimated 933,182 homes.
  11. Wave Broadband has cable coverage in 3 states, available to an estimated 908,214 homes.
  12. Midco has cable coverage in 6 states, available to an estimated 611,022 homes.
  13. Grande Communications has cable coverage in 1 states, available to an estimated 597,046 homes.
  14. Northland Communications has cable coverage in 16 states, available to an estimated 589,543 homes.

What companies offer DSL service?

DSL has been around since the late 1980s and early 1990s when researchers found that copper phone lines could transmit both broadband signals and voice. DSL speeds can now reach up to 100 Mbps, and HDTV, Internet, and Voice can share the same lines. Because DSL can run on existing phone lines, it is the most commonly available type of internet connection. The largest DSL providers in the United States are:

  1. att has DSL coverage in 21 states, available to an estimated 51,129,723 homes, 39.68% of the US population.
  2. EarthLink has DSL coverage in 26 states, available to an estimated 40,980,760 homes, 32.13% of the US population.
  3. CenturyLink has DSL coverage in 37 states, available to an estimated 21,560,708 homes, 15.90% of the US population.
  4. Verizon has DSL coverage in 11 states, available to an estimated 20,851,732 homes, 15.85% of the US population.
  5. Frontier has DSL coverage in 25 states, available to an estimated 12,996,903 homes, 9.89% of the US population.
  6. Windstream has DSL coverage in 18 states, available to an estimated 4,992,330 homes, 4.32% of the US population.
  7. Consolidated Communications has DSL coverage in 22 states, available to an estimated 2,169,655 homes.
  8. TDS has DSL coverage in 27 states, available to an estimated 983,802 homes.
  9. Sonic has DSL coverage in 1 states, available to an estimated 961,612 homes.
  10. Cincinnati Bell has DSL coverage in 3 states, available to an estimated 793,744 homes.

Which is better Fiber or Cable or DSL?

  • Cable internet is a service that offers high-speed internet through the same coaxial cable as cable television. The maximum download speeds can vary from 50 to 300 Mbps.
  • DSL, or Digital Subscriber Line, is a type of internet connection that delivers transmits over a wired telephone line, which offers faster speeds than traditional copper lines. Download speeds vary from 3 to 12 to 75 Mbps depending on the type of DSL and distance to the telephone companies central office (CO).
  • Fiber-optic connections are the fastest type of internet available to residents with download speeds up to 1 Gbps (1000 Mbps). Data is transmitted through optical fibers allowing for longer distances without losing any speed.
  • Satellite internet receives data by installing a small satellite dish on the roof that usually faces the direction of the provider’s satellite in space. It is typical for satellite internet providers to enforce a data cap for their plans and download speeds range from 10 to 25 Mbps.

What Internet speed do I need to stream Netflix, Amazon Prime, and Hulu?

Depending on the type of connection available to you, you may have data caps that restrict how much you can stream. Here are the requirements for streaming:

  • The FCC states you need a minimum download speed of 0.7 Mbps for standard streaming videos, 1.5 Mbps for streaming feature movies, and 4 Mbps for HD-quality.
  • Amazon Prime Video requires 900 Kbps for Standard Definition (SD) and 3.5 Mbps for High Definition (HD) videos.
  • Netflix recommends 3 Mbps for SD quality, 5 Mbps for HD, and 25 Mbps for Ultra HD.
  • Hulu’s minimum SD and HD internet speed requirements are 1.5 Mbps for SD, 3 Mbps for 720p HD, 6 Mbps for 1080p HD, and 13 Mbps for 4k Ultra HD.

To summarize, we would recommend the following minimum download speeds for streaming on one device at a time:

  • SD quality – 3 Mbps
  • HD quality – 6 Mbps
  • 4K Ultra HD quality – 25 Mbps

How much data does the average person use?

The amount of data you need depends on your internet usage, streaming uses the most data. Streaming six hours of high definition video per day uses 540 GB per month versus streaming six hours of standard definition uses 126 GB per month. Downloading one movie every day would use 60 GB per month. Downloading new games over the internet can use 30 to 100 GB of data in one short burst and playing online for five hours per day can use 9 GB of data per month. Listening to six hours of audio each day would use 5 GB per month. Speaking from personal experience, a family of three that streams Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Prime shows daily, watches movies weekly, streams music daily, and uploads photos frequently uses 430 to 526 GB each month.

How much does internet cost?

Based on data we have collected, the monthly cost of Internet Service generally ranges from $30 to $70. On average, it costs about $32 per month for 10 Mbps download and 2 Mbps upload, about $41 for 50 Mbps download and 15 Mbps upload, roughly $65 for 65 Mbps download and 25 Mbps upload. The cost per month for broadband, speed at least 25 Mbps, can range from $0.25 to $3.00 per megabit per second.

What does Mbps mean?

Mbps is the abbreviation for megabits per second and is the same as Mbits/sec. Megabits (Mb) are what internet service providers use for measuring speeds. Megabytes (MB) are used for measuring file sizes and data usage. MBps or MB/ps is megabytes per second (note the uppercase MB). To convert bits to bytes, divide the bits by 8. To convert bytes to bits, multiply the bytes by 8.

  • 8 bits = 1 byte
  • 1 kilobit (Kb) = 1000 bits (b) = 125 bytes (B)
  • 1 megabit (Mb) = 1000 kilobits (Kb) = 125 kilobytes (KB)
  • 1 gigabit (Gb) = 1000 megabits (Mb) = 125 megabytes (MB)

How can I get internet in my home?

Choosing the right provider for your needs depends on your normal internet usage and what is available in your area. If you are constantly streaming data, then Fiber, Cable, or DSL plans would work best for you (in that order) since speeds are fastest. Your home’s location plays a huge role in choosing the right provider since most internet providers differ in availability, whereas Wireless and Satellite internet providers have the most coverage, but have data caps on usage and limits on streaming. We recommend starting with the top 2 most available providers in your area and compare their speed and price. You may have specific speed requirements, and one provider will stand out to you, or if you are on a fixed income, you may want to choose the cheaper option.

  1. Check availability – Use your ZIP Code to determine which internet providers service your surrounding area. InMyArea.com will give you a list of internet providers available nearby, but keep in mind some providers will not offer service to all addresses within a ZIP Code, then use your address to narrow the results even further.
  2. Choose the best provider – The best internet provider depends on the distance of wires run from the company’s infrastructure to your home and the type of technology they use for the connection: Fiber, Cable, DSL, Copper, Wireless or Satellite. Fiber and Cable are the best and fastest internet connections with the highest download and upload speeds and lowest latency – the time in milliseconds it takes for packets of data to reach their destination on the internet.
  3. Compare plans – If you play multi-player games or stream Ultra HD videos, you will need a minimum of 25 Mbps or more depending on how many people in your household are sharing your internet connection. If you are on a budget, fixed income, or only use your internet connection for news, weather, and email, consider picking the cheapest, most affordable plan to save money each month.

Some providers may provide internet service in your area, even on your street, but your home may not be able to get connected because of distance limitations. In the rare event that your first choice is unable to provide access to your home, have a backup provider in mind such as a DSL, Wireless or Satellite connection which are much more likely to be available. Homes in rural areas have an especially difficult time getting fast internet connections from providers because the speeds degrade as you get further away from their infrastructure. They generally only install expensive Fiber-Optic backbones to fix the distance limitations in densely populated cities where there are far more potential customers.

How do I find my current Internet Service Provider?

Your home may have already been connected to one or more ISPs by a previous owner or tenant. One or more providers may have already connected your home to their network, but you could still have more options available to you, possibly with faster speeds or lower prices. To find your existing internet provider look for equipment with recognizable logos or company names inside your home, in the closets or laundry room inside a smart panel; on the exterior walls of your home near the main electrical panel for wiring panels; and, in the front yards of your neighborhood on telecommunication boxes. The telecommunication and broadband equipment can vary in design, but you will likely find the provider’s name or logo on any of these items, look for equipment similar to these examples:

Smart panel in home

Smart Panel

This smart panel is located in a laundry room with coaxial (cable) and telephone wires inside, but no company name anywhere.

House exterior wall panels

Exterior Panel

These service panels are located on the exterior of the home adjacent to the main electrical panel, both units have a company name.

Underground wiring boxes

Wiring Boxes

These boxes can be found in neighborhoods with underground wiring. Stickers clearly show which provider uses this box for service.

Additional Internet Resources

Broadband Data Sources

  • 2018 Broadband Deployment Report, docs.fcc.gov
  • 2018 Measuring Fixed Broadband, www.fcc.gov
  • Fixed Broadband Deployment, broadbandmap.fcc.gov
  • The Facts and Future of Broadband Competition, apps.fcc.gov
  • BroadbandUSA: Guide to Federal Funding of Broadband Projects, www2.ntia.doc.gov
  • Broadband Statistics Report: Broadband Availability in Urban vs. Rural Areas, www.broadbandmap.gov
  • Broadband Statistics Report: Access to Broadband Technology by Speed, www.broadbandmap.gov
  • Broadband Availability in America: With Rural Americans Looking for High-Speed Services, Adequate Broadband Speeds Remain Out of Reach for Many, apps.fcc.gov
  • Competition Among U.S. Broadband Service Providers, esa.doc.gov
  • NTIA Broadband Adoption Toolkit, www2.ntia.doc.gov
  • Measuring Broadband America: A Report on Consumer Wireline Broadband Performance in the U.S, transition.fcc.gov
  • Broadband Performance, download.broadband.gov
  • The National Broadband Plan, transition.fcc.gov
  • Broadband in America, www.broadband.gov
  • Internet service provider, en.wikipedia.org
  • Internet access, en.wikipedia.org

Source

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