Sometimes, people find it difficult to love their internet service, even the ultra-fast broadband providers. Connection reliability, speed, cost, and customer service can frequently be lacking. It hurts more when you’re stuck with only one ISP option, which is the case for 38.4% of PCMag readers in our latest ISP survey. On the bright side, that figure compares favorably to last year’s survey when it was 42%. 

Perhaps that’s because of the growth of ISPs that reach more and more people wirelessly—services like Starlink satellite and the 5G home offerings from the US’s big three mobile carriers. The latter category has been growing faster than any other broadband technology for a few years now.

The ISPs our readers rank highest both the US and Canada continue to be rock-solid, ultra-high-speed fiber-to-the-home providers, followed by the old stalwart cable brands. If you can access a local option operated by a municipality or a local utility, all the better. Find out how your ISP—whether it’s from a behemoth company or a small local provider—rates below. 

For information on the top internet service providers for work, check out our Business Choice 2025 ISPs coverage. 

The Top ISPs in the United States for 2025

Broadband is considered high-speed internet—dial-up, like we all had in the ’80s and ’90s, doesn’t count. In fact, the FCC reset the definition of broadband last year from the 25 Megabits per second (Mbps) minimum download speed it had been stuck at since the Obama administration to 100Mbps. In our results, only 11.9% of people have 100Mbps speed or lower; it’s nice to see that 34.1% say they have 1 Gigabit per second (Gbps) or higher. 

You’re only going to get speeds like the latter with fiber optics. Our top overall ISP this year is a repeat winner. GFiber (formerly Google Fiber), Alphabet’s ISP, is back again for a fourth Readers’ Choice win, having taken the top spot previously in 2020, 2021, and 2024. Google also won last year’s award for Best nationwide ISP as well as in five regions of the country.

GFiber’s lowest tier of service starts at 1Gbps for download speeds. It’s now available in more than 30 cities; in some big metro areas like Chicago, Denver, and Seattle, connectivity comes via its ancillary WebPass symmetrical-speed fixed-wireless service for select multi-dwelling units (apartments and condos).  

GFiber is the top-rated ISP with our readers in terms of satisfaction, speed, and likelihood to be recommended; it ties for connection reliability and ease of use with the two runner-up services.

(Note: Click the arrows in our interactive charts to view various elements of our survey results.)

One survey respondent says that GFiber is “a good experience, and very prompt when there is an outage.” More than one reader mentions the company giving them credit for an outage without even having to be asked.

We spoke at length to broadband senior editor Trey Paul at CNET, our sister publication, about some of the winners in our survey this year. Here’s what he had to say about our top-ranking brand: “Google Fiber figured out before some of these other companies what the pain points are with internet service and how to remove them. One is just the technology: Google Fiber, it’s in the name. It’s the fastest technology and has the fewest opportunities for error.”

Another GFiber improvement involves the modem hardware it provides to customers, called the Fiber Jack. “You’re getting all of the equipment, all in one price, and [GFiber is] pretty up-front about that, much more so than other ISPs were at the time that Google Fiber came on the scene,” Paul says. It’s a change that more ISPs have picked up on, he adds, noting that even big names like Verizon Fios were still charging rent on equipment in the home until very recently.

Also returning to our list this year is AT&T Fiber, besting another longtime repeat winner, Verizon Fios. As a prominent ISP with a massive reach (AT&T Fiber has 9.6 million subscribers; it will add about 1 million more subscribers this year after buying Lumen), it’s the Readers’ Choice among major, national ISPs. 

AT&T has come a long way in just the last five years, thanks to its renewed focus on fiber, Paul says. It also stopped doing what some consider bait-and-switch promotional pricing up front, which probably fosters customer loyalty. “AT&T still has promos and things, but doesn’t lean on them anymore,” he says. “Your price is your price.” AT&T Fiber also stopped charging for in-home equipment, much like GFiber.

Our rankings for AT&T Fiber are almost in line with the recent American Customer Satisfaction Index survey, though in those results, AT&T Fiber came in slightly ahead of GFiber. 

Number two in our chart above is Nextlight, the local provider in Longmont, Colorado. It’s a previous Readers’ Choice winner—taking the top spot in 2023. This year, it might have won the top honor again had GFiber not prevailed. The two tie for connection reliability and ease of use, but Nextlight bests GFiber when it comes to perceived value, which is enough to earn it the title of best local ISP in the US. 

One PCMag reader touts it as the “best ISP in the world!” Another says, “The rate is incredibly affordable, customer service is fantastic, and I could never go back to anything slower than this.” 

The other muni-ISP in the list is Pulse, in Loveland, just 25 miles to the north. It places third, showing again that localized ISPs tend to be highly preferred by users. We’ve previously singled out Pulse in our Best Gaming ISP coverage for almost perfect ISP quality scores, with low latency and jitter on every connection. Nextlight, Pulse, and Fort Collins Connexion—all in the Denver area—prove there’s no better value and speed than what you get with local fiber.

CNET doesn’t review municipal ISPs, but Paul says that people’s affection for them stems from the feeling that “this is my local provider.” He adds, “There’s a sense of community. There’s someone to talk to, to help with customer service.”

Cable companies are hardly just coaxial cable anymore (most add a mix of fiber to their tech), but the stand-out, obvious cabler for high-speed internet remains Astound Broadband. It’s the culmination of the merger of many other brands, including Grande, RCN, and Wave, into one big company. It’s smaller than Comcast’s Xfinity or Charter’s Spectrum, the latter of which is going to get even bigger when it buys Cox. Nevertheless, Astound definitely scores better than those behemoths. It also won this spot last year. 

Paul says that Astound’s history with more localized ISPs enables it to offer promotions that matter more in its various markets across 11 states plus Washington, D.C. “Astound would always try to add something to make [the service] alluring for the customer,” he says. 

SpaceX’s Starlink is the darling of anyone in a remote location. The other two big satellite ISPs don’t even place in our survey results, indicating Starlink has more market share as well. This is the fourth year we’ve given Starlink a Readers’ Choice award—and this year, it even has a satisfaction score that outperforms every ISP on the list except the top-rated municipal providers. Starlink’s lowest rating is for value, but it still scores higher than most cable companies or mobile providers acting as ISPs. 

“Satellite is great because it’s available just about anywhere,” Paul says. “But they’re only going to get you so far in terms of speed.” Still, it’s a top-notch service; PCMag’s Starlink review names it an Editors’ Choice.

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Speaking of mobile providers, the big three carriers—AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon—offer fixed wireless services to the home. That’s an ISP that uses cellular signals, rather than wires. These are some of the fastest-growing broadband services in the US, thanks to the ease of deployment. However, they’re still limited by how much 5G is available in certain locations. So, while prevalent, they don’t deliver the coverage availability of a satellite-based ISP. 

AT&T’s Internet Air doesn’t make the cut this year, but the other two providers’ 5G home services do. Just like last year, T-Mobile 5G Home takes the win. It bests Verizon 5G by just a tenth of a point for satisfaction and it fares slightly better on likelihood to recommend. T-Mobile scores higher for overall satisfaction than half the list in our chart, including most of the cable companies—only Astound and Armstrong are higher. 

“T-Mobile has the edge beyond just the fact that it is very aggressive in terms of marketing and promotion,” Paul says. “It is also more available in rural areas. That’s made a big difference, so they’re a legitimate alternative for many, many people.” He also appreciates that with T-Mobile 5G Home, you can try the service before you subscribe. 

T-Mobile is actually on the list twice, as enough people rated its wireless service as an ISP to give it a berth, albeit very close to the bottom. Even the mobile service outperformed AT&T Internet, a classic DSL-based offering. Few would even associate DSL connection technology with broadband these days. 

The Top ISPs in Canada for 2025

In the US, an ISP typically has to build its own infrastructure—the physical lines each customer uses for the backhaul connection. In Canada, the telecom regulatory body (the CRTC) says that companies with existing networks must let other ISPs use those same lines (for a fee). This sounds nice, but it’s a bit of a mess.

The big three Canadian telcos—Bell, Rogers, and Telus—all compete ferociously and don’t like to share, yet sometimes also want to have it both ways. Telus reportedly wants to use Bell’s fiber lines in Ontario as the carrier tries to expand there. Bell doesn’t want that to happen. In theory, Bell could use Telus lines where it has none, too. Nevertheless, Bell has threatened to stop investing as much in fiber in the future if it has to license its lines. Then again, this regulation could all change as soon as this summer, when the CRTC may issue more decrees.

Meanwhile, though they can use those same lines, many smaller players may be priced out. Plus, the big three also have many “flanker” brands—ISPs they own that charge less or target different audiences. Some say the situation is killing ISP competition in Canada.

All of which is to say that things up north can be complicated.

But that doesn’t prevent our survey respondents in Canada from picking a favorite. This year, a new name floats to the very top. Videotron is an incumbent in Quebec and Ottawa, part of the Quebecor media conglomerate. Videotron has been expanding (thanks in part to the sharing rule mentioned above). And customers seem to be happy about that. Respondents give the ISP top marks for overall satisfaction, reliability, speed, ease of use, and other categories. 

Survey respondents like to use the word “excellent” when it comes to Videotron, especially in regard to customer service. “Best service I have had to date,” says one. Another mentions that in four years of using Videotron, the provider has had zero outages.

PCMag spoke with Jonathan Lamont, the editor-in-chief of Canadian tech news site MobileSyrup.com, about the Canadian ISP landscape. When asked about Videotron in particular, he says, “My view is pretty positive in terms of pricing. You get what you pay for, and the reliability is pretty high.”

Videotron’s only big loss in our chart is that it’s not the most highly recommended brand. That goes to Oxio, a flanker owned by cable company Cogeco. 

Speaking of flankers, the top one in our list—even ahead of Oxio, thanks to a slightly higher overall satisfaction rating—is Fizz, a side-brand of none other than Videotron. The two swapped positions from last year when Fizz was the top-scoring brand overall. Videotron’s overall score has skyrocketed in comparison since then. Fizz stayed close enough for second place overall, so we’re giving it Readers’ Choice as the top flanker brand (others on the list include the previously mentioned Oxio and Bell’s Virgin Plus.) 

Fizz users complain that the only way to contact them is online via chat. Indeed, it doesn’t score well for tech support or customer service, but that doesn’t seem to affect users’ overall satisfaction. (Lamont notes that Fizz uses the same lines as Videotron, which may explain why Fizz also scores so well.)

The battle between the big three typically comes down to only two in our results; Rogers tends to land toward the bottom of the list, particularly for value. Last year, Bell Canada snuck ahead for a win, but this year, Telus takes the Reader’s Choice title. 

It’s a close call. Bell and Telus tie for overall satisfaction, each improving from last year. The tiebreaker is the likelihood to recommend rating, where Telus is ahead by one-fifth of a point. Telus also tops Bell in scores for setup, and among the ancillary services these providers offer, Telus is on top for broadcast TV, mobile service, and home phone service. The two are tied for home Wi-Fi. Bell has better scores for streaming options and home security, if those are priorities for you. 

“Telus’s footprint is mostly out in Western Canada,” Lamont says. “It is popular for having a strong fiber footprint and a reliable network.” He believes that people who used to have Shaw as a provider out west have not been happy since that brand was subsumed by Rogers: “That potentially could have contributed to a boost for Telus.”

SpaceX’s Starlink is again a Readers’ Choice for satellite: reportedly, there were more than 400,000 users in Canada as of last June. Trump’s trade wars have had some impact on the company, and even before tariffs became a global concern, Starlink faced the loss of major contracts in the country. But it’s still the top satellite-based ISP with Canadians. (Xplore also has some low-earth-orbit flyers.) 

The difference in Starlink’s overall satisfaction between the two nations, however, is stark. But that point-and-a-half difference is nothing new. In the US, Starlink has an 8.8 out of 10 (down from 9.0 last year), whereas in Canada, it’s at 7.2 (down from 7.5). Starlink’s 1.4 million users in the US appear to be much happier with the brand and have been for a while. 

Canadians using the service occasionally noted in comments that CEO Elon Musk bothers them, though one said it is “the best available to me, I don’t care if Elon owns it.”

“Setting aside Elon Musk and all that nonsense,” Lamont says, “Starlink has a pretty decent reputation in Canada. It’s one of the first significant new players in the ISP space we’ve had in a long time, especially for Canadians who live in rural areas.” He adds, “Starlink is still kind of expensive, but the service quality is a lot better than the incumbents in those areas.”

Many respondents also noted Starlink’s expense ($140 per month CAD), plus the difficulty of getting support if the service goes down—Starlink only started offering a dedicated phone number a few months ago. No surprise, Starlink comes in dead last for tech support, customer service, and repairs. 

Full Results

The PCMag Readers’ Choice survey for ISPs in the US was in the field from Feb. 10 to May 5, 2025; the Canadian survey was conducted via a panel of users from Feb. 24 to March 3, 2025. For more information on how we conduct surveys, read our methodology. 

PCMag Readers’ Choice: How Our Surveys Help You Find the Best Products

About Eric Griffith

Senior Editor, Features

I’ve been writing about computers, the internet, and technology professionally for over 30 years, more than half of that time with PCMag. I run several special projects including the Readers’ Choice and Business Choice surveys, and yearly coverage of the Best ISPs and Best Gaming ISPs, plus Best Products of the Year and Best Brands. I work from my home, and did it long before pandemics made it cool.

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