The second half of last year was a good one for those fighting to reduce the digital divide and SpaceX’s low-earth orbiting (LEO) Starlink service, according to a new report from Ookla.
The analysts found that, in 43 states, the gap between urban and rural users with access to the Federal Communications Commission’s [FCC’s] minimum broadband speeds of 100 Mbps download and 20 Mbps upload (100/20 Mbps) shrunk compared to the first half of the year.
Ookla, which is in the process of being acquired by Accenture, found that 70% of Speedtest users in 13 states had access to 100/20 Mbps connectivity. Only five states reached this level of service in the first half of 2025.
The report found that Connecticut, New Jersey, and Delaware are the top-ranked states. Montana had the biggest annual improvement in fixed broadband, jumping from 41.09% 54.58% between the first and second half.
The report noted that Starlink service thrived in Nebraska, where 58.31% of its subscribers received the 100/20 Mbps minimum. This finding — the best for the company in the 50 states and the District of Columbia — was a jump over the 32.16% of users in the state who had access to the threshold speed during the first half of 2025.
Starlink also had strength in urban areas. The report found that rural Starlink users get better broadband speeds than urban users in 29 of 50 states. The service also had more users in urban than rural areas in Florida, Massachusetts, Hawaii, New Jersey, and Connecticut.
Ookla editorial director Sue Marek predicts that the good times will continue. “We expect 2026 to be another banner year for broadband expansion as the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) Program transitions from the planning phase to construction,” she said in the report.
In the same biannual report from last October, Ookla found that states in which 60% or more of Speedtest users achieved the 100/20 Mbps threshold rose from 22 states and the District of Columbia in the second half of 2024 to 38 states and D.C. in the first half of 2025.
