Looking For The Fastest Home Internet? These ISPs Top The List

Even if it's more than the internet speed you actually need for everyday use, many of us want to equip our homes with the fastest internet speed possible. That can be tricky, since we're often limited in which internet service providers (ISPs) are available to us. If you want the fastest possible internet in the U.S., you'll want fiber. Traditional broadband cable uses the same coaxial wires that run across the country as cable TV does. Fiber uses light pulses that travel through flexible strands of plastic or glass fibers (fiber-optic cables), which allows for significantly faster internet speeds. However, this infrastructure needs to be physically built, and many parts of the country still don't have access to fiber networks.

If you do, though, you can get much faster internet at home by subscribing to an ISP with fiber. According to CNET, which conducts frequent, in-depth evaluations of many providers, the fastest ISP currently available in the country is GFiber (or Google Fiber). It promises up to 8,000 megabits-per-second (Mbps), which measures how fast data can be transferred. In some limited regions, GFiber promises over twice that — 20,000 Mbps. For reference, Spectrum offers just 30 Mbps in its basic tier, and 1,000 Mbps for its fastest, most expensive plan.

In its list of the best high-speed ISPs, CNET also includes Quantum Fiber, which is owned by AT&T and promises up to 8,000 Mbps. However, a few things still give Google the edge (in addition to 20 Gbps speeds for some users), including that it serves more areas than Quantum and is constantly expanding its network. It is also experimenting with network slicing to allow customers to optimize their home internet using separate sub-networks. Plus, it is also among the best home internet providers when it comes to customer satisfaction.

As with any ISP, these numbers represent the top speeds promised by the company — not what you're likely to experience. Everything from Wi-Fi and Ethernet connections to router hardware and neighborhood traffic affects speeds, and the weighted max download speed is typically lower than what you're really paying for. In CNET's testing with Ookla's Speedtest software, AT&T Fiber — which only promises up to 5,000 Mbps — was the fastest overall, with a median download speed of around 360 Mbps.

While many internet users are still relying on traditional broadband cable at home, there is another option that's even newer (on a mass scale) than fiber: satellite internet. Starlink, an ISP startup owned by SpaceX, single-handedly made the technology that wirelessly beams internet to homes from orbit through a small satellite dish a household name. Its list of competitors is growing, but for now it's the biggest player on the market.

Being able to use wireless home internet has obvious benefits — it can be used during power outages, in the middle of the wilderness, or even on boats. While the technology has come a long way, making it a completely practical option, it isn't nearly as fast as fiber, and even many broadband cable ISPs offer faster speeds. Currently, Starlink promises up to 400+ Mbps wherever Starlink satellites can reach, though that's affected by weather and requires your dish to be perfectly aligned with an open sky above it. While it may not be the fastest, its convenience is winning over many customers.

Technically, there is one ISP on CNET's list with a higher maximum internet speed than Google Fiber: Ziply Fiber. However, it serves a much smaller user base than other major service providers and is currently only available in parts of the Pacific Northwest, so it isn't much use to most of the population. For those who do live in an area covered by Ziply, though, a jaw-dropping 50 Gbps fiber plan is available. That's over six times the 8,000 Mbps and 2.5x the 20,000 Mbps numbers GFiber boasts.

But even these numbers are small potatoes compared to what some outside of the United States can get. Japan has the world record for the fastest internet speeds ever achieved, after researchers from Japan's National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT) worked with Sumitomo Electric Industries to hit 1.02 petabits per second. Peta comes after tera, which comes after giga — so that's a very high number: over 1 billion Mbps (compared to the 30 Mbps that comes with a basic home ISP broadband plan).

This was an experiment to push internet technology to the limits, though, and not what the typical person living in Japan can expect to get in their own home. When it comes to everyday home internet use, Singapore currently has the fastest median fixed broadband speed of 407.05 Mbps for downloads. That may have something to do with the fact that Singapore is just one densely populated city, but it's still a significant lead over the second-highest country, Chile, which has a median of 393.43 Mbps for fixed broadband.