Your Ultimate Guide to High-Speed Internet

It’s here! Finally, you can find the answers to your biggest questions about high-speed internet in this nifty little summary we have put together.

Whether you work from home, need fast upload speeds, or want to find the fastest internet for your money, this article is here to help. We will discuss a quick method to test your internet speed, along with tips on how to improve your connection—or even change which provider you get service from. With that in mind, here is what you need to know about high-speed internet service.

What is High-Speed Internet?

As the name suggests, high speed means that all of your internet needs and wants are met. You have done everything you need to have high performance and good upload speeds on your devices. High-speed service is measured in Mbps or megabits per second. Speeds of about 40 Mbps are very good, while most business internet providers deliver speeds of up to 100 

Mbps—or even 1000 Mbps!

So if you have asked this question, you are probably asking another one: Do I have high-speed? What speeds does my service deliver? Like most things in life, there is a website devoted entirely to that topic. If you go to fast.com, the site will automatically display your speeds in Mbps—you do not even have to press any buttons! As an example, I recently searched on my laptop at home and got about 4 Mbps, which is actually a little on the mediocre side. My devices are a bit slow, but our WiFi network came free when my roommate worked for a marketing firm, so I do not have any complaints.

What is a Good High-Speed Internet?

This really depends on which type of internet you are using. Like I said before, 40 Mbps is generally pretty good, and will meet the bandwidth needs of most households’ devices. But there are only two when it comes to the fastest internet.

First of all, speeds depend on which provider you use, and which method they use to deliver your internet (cable internet, WiFi, or even DSL internet. I did not know people even still used that!).

And second of all, speeds depend A LOT on where you live. If you are out in rural areas, you are going to have a bad time no matter which provider you go for. If you are in the city, chances are there is a fiber-optic internet line near you, and those tend to provide fast speeds consistently.

Take your personal internet service environment into account, and do a little research. You may want to ask your geeky neighbors which service provider they use. Perhaps there is a service provider where you live that I have not heard about. Some internet providers do spectacular work in some countries or states but are relatively unknown in others. Maybe a high-speed guru is living near you, so look around. Do your homework and see what your local internet service can provide.

With that in mind, here is a rundown of how experts define high speed, as divided into some of the significant types of provider:

What is a Good DSL Speed?

DSL internet (“digital subscriber line”) tends to be on the lower end of the speed spectrum. It has made dial-up internet mostly outdated, but you will still find one or two providers out there that offer dial-up. Speeds for DSL internet vary from 1 Mbps to 100 Mbps, though DSL by itself tends to be slower. Overall, DSL is not bad…but it is not great, either.

What is Good Cable Speed? 

The cable is the next step up, and according to highspeedinternet.com, cable internet also has a higher bandwidth* than most DSL. A significant advantage of cable is that it is almost effortless to install—in fact, it may already be installed in your home! Cable internet piggybacks off of other cable connections, which means you may already be using some cable services for other electronic devices in your home. Cable internet is also a bit more reliable than DSL and gets faster average speeds.

As with all of these connections, be aware that cable internet is not a perfect network. Looking down the list of ratings on highspeedinternet.com, I can see a lot of reviews on cable internet providers that are not always favorable. This happens even when the service guarantees speeds of 1,000 Mbps or even 2000 Mbps. Do not take these reviews too close to heart; after all, most people would only review an internet company if they were frustrated with a particular aspect. Therefore, your perception may be skewed when you do not find too many reviews of average or above-average internet service.

(*Bandwidth is the measure of how much data can pass through a specific connection at a given time. Imagine a gate in a barnyard fence. The wider the gate is open, the higher the number of animals that can pass through at a given time. While an average or less than average bandwidth may only admit chickens and geese, you want yours to be the kind that lets through pigs, flocks of sheep, and even larger farm animals like horses, cows, and stegosauruses. You know, just your typical farm animals.)

What is a good WiFi Speed?

WiFi has recently become very popular (which may be due in part to its trendy, stylish name, but I am getting ahead of myself). While most people seem to think that WiFi works by magic, or that it simply flows through the air we breathe, the real solution is much less mystical—and much more straightforward, as well. WiFi towers transmit signals to their providers on an individual basis. This means a single tower can provide tens of thousands of homes with internet service, all while maintaining their speeds.

Like the other services, WiFi maintains a relatively high-speed Mbps. WiFi is reasonably reliable, extremely well-established in homes, restaurants, and other places of business, and is very easy to activate and deactivate. It is as simple as swiping a button on any of your devices you want to take on or off the system. 

Obviously, WiFi can still have its drawbacks from time to time. We have all had those unpleasant moments when the WiFi cuts out, and our latest phone call is doomed to whatever high-speed internet prison it gets banished to. But nevertheless, WiFi is an extremely safe option that is available almost anywhere. Out of these four types of internet that I discuss here, WiFi is the provider that I would recommend. But there is another type that might work even better—depending on your circumstances.

What is a Good Fiber Optic Speed?

Fiber-optics is one of the best high-speed internet options. It is also the most limited. Using buried cables to funnel the internet directly to your home (I mean, it is a little more complicated than then, but forgive my lack of technical jargon), this method delivers fast speeds on a reasonably regular basis. There are only two real drawbacks.

First, not even fiber-optics are perfect. I feel the need to say this because I put this internet service provider at the top of the list, but they are really quite reliable. Just be aware that even when you buy the absolute best product, there will still be bumps in the road. The second thing is that fiber-optics are relatively limited in terms of how much area they cover. Because each fiber-optic network has to be installed with massive pipelines that run under streets and through rural areas, the installation process is lengthy. Google Fiber is a trending example of this method: it is spectacular if you have access to it, but it only covers a few of the most densely packed cities in America at the moment. So be sure to look up this service provider if you have it, and take advantage of their spectacular service if possible. Fiber optics are the bullet train of the internet world: they are sleek and expensive, but it is tough to argue with the quality that they deliver to their customers.

Is 100 Mbps High-Speed Internet?

Yes! 100 Mbps is very high speed. If you can get speeds like that, you will probably have the fastest internet on your street. But keep this in mind: How much of that high speed do you really need? Go back to fast.com and look up what your current speed is. If you are looking for a home internet provider, estimate how much your household uses in a month. Are the speeds you experience good enough for the work and fun you want to accomplish? Honestly, if all your connected devices have decent upload speeds and are not constantly buffering, your internet is doing just fine. The fastest internet may not always be your immediate go-to option because of how much speed you will not be paying for. (If you do not believe me, just wait until the end of your next billing cycle!) The moral of the story is this: only pay for the internet speeds you need, and no more. 

Who Has the Fastest Internet Service?

Be aware that fast is not always reliable, and also that reliable is not always fast. Your fastest provider will vary depending on where you live; rural areas may not experience good speeds at all. With that in mind, take these recommendations as a start to your new service provider. 

Google Fiber is extremely good if you have access to it, and AT&T and Verizon tend to be some of the most wide-reaching and well-respected internet service providers in the business. Xfinity Internet is great for its price—if you make use of its streaming services, that is. For more information about Xfinity internet and other streaming services, tune in again soon for our upcoming article!

What is the Fastest High-Speed Internet in My Area?

It is easier to find the answer to this question than you think. While you should still pursue your options to the best of your ability, finding competitive high speeds is quite easy with the help of this simple website. There are tons of sites like this that I have found while researching for these articles, and sometimes they will even show you reviews, price estimates, and pros versus cons list. These sites can also be extremely helpful when you are moving to a new area and want to make sure that your high-speed internet plans are in place by the time you get there. So go ahead and experiment and see what you find!

Which State Has the Best and Worst High-Speed Internet?

Connecticut and DC have the best, and Mississippi is the worst. In fact, the whole South seems like they got the short end of the metaphorical internet stick. When you look at each state on an individual level, smaller cities tend to have really good connections, probably because they are not getting tangled in all the urban infrastructure where a customer can get lost in the shuffle. Huge shout out to highspeedinternet.com, who provides a ton of the background information that I referred to in this article, and who shows a huge backdrop of all the States and gives detailed information about each one’s internet providers.

Almost everyone has some kind of internet service. The debate is not whether to find a provider, but whether to change which provider you are using right now. Getting high-speed data will usually require signing up for one of a plethora of internet providers. (You may also attempt starting a WiFi plan by yourself, but the easiest way is to become a customer for a larger network. Most of the time, these people have greater expertise under their belt, and can provide fast internet more efficiently than most ordinary people can find). If you would like to know more about how to find and choose between different internet providers, check out our other articles on business internet and home internet! In those articles, we discuss how to find a good internet service provider, how to decide between internet packages, whether to obtain unlimited data or avoid extra feeds with data caps, and other details about high-speed internet options.