A new report from the national internet comparison site ISP Reports ranks several fiber-rich cities among the best in the nation for internet speed. Markets with local infrastructure investments and new deployments outperformed some large markets, the authors said, and “are creating competitive broadband landscapes worth further exploration.”
Residents of the Salt Lake City metro area saw an increase of 282 Mbps to reach a total of 7,215 Mbps. There, 99% of the city has access to broadband internet speeds, with 87% fiber coverage and 97% cable coverage.
Researchers relied on a robust methodology and several data sets to achieve their findings, but the final results may not represent the speeds customers can actually access. That’s because the report data looked only at the fastest speed tier advertised (at “speeds up to” certain thresholds) rather than speeds actually achieved.
Businesses and residents of Salt Lake City can get Google Fiber with speeds up to 8 Gbps, for example, but many customers aren’t willing to pay $150 per month for the privilege, and may not have any use for speeds that fast. (A recent report from Amdocs shows that some people are not yet sold on fiber.)
Customers in nearby Provo can also get Google Fiber with speeds up to 8 Gbps, but the report doesn’t show how popular its multi-gig speed plans are. That city boasts 78% fiber coverage and ranked fourth on the list of fastest major cities.
Meanwhile, Chattanooga, Tennessee, took home top honors in its category for its speed of 17,141 Mbps.
Fiber coverage in the city is reported to be 93%. Customers can subscribe to EPB Fiber Network, one of the nation’s first municipally owned gigabit services. They can also choose SVEConnect, a project of the Sequachee Valley Electric Cooperative (SVEC). It offers speeds up to 1 Gbps, while competitor AT&T offers speeds up to 5 Gbps (not necessarily at the same addresses).
Among regional cities, Hixson, Tennessee, was the fastest city with a whopping 25,000 Mbps. The top small and medium cities were Layton and West Valley City, both in Utah, while the top large city was Oakland, California.
In Hixson, 100% of the city has access to fiber and local provider EPB Power offers speeds up to 25 Gbps. In Layton and West Valley City, residents have access to the municipally owned open-access fiber service UTOPIA, which offers residential speeds up to 10 Gbps.
How Were the Fastest Speeds Calculated?
The top speeds reflected the fastest download speeds offered by internet providers in each city, as reported to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) by broadband providers themselves. That data was compared to populations in each city to determine how many addresses qualify for the top speeds, and each city was assigned a letter grade using the researcher’s proprietary report card methodology.
Competing organizations such as Ookla rank city internet speeds based on averages of speed tests taken by real customers, but that report data may be skewed based on who took the tests and to which tiers those users subscribe. Other organizations that rank cities use data provided directly by the internet providers but that data tends to lack subscriber-level information and data about actual speeds achieved (as compared to promised speeds).
Takeaways for Broadband Providers
Customers in the new fastest cities report have easy access to telco giants such as Xfinity, AT&T, Optimum, and Spectrum. But many of the fastest cities stand out for having access to smaller providers that offer blazing fast fiber speeds.
“Local infrastructure investments and new deployments are creating competitive broadband landscapes worth further exploration,” the authors of the speed report said in a press release about the study.
