# Speedtest® Market Report

### United States

#### Published August 3, 2016

The data from the first six months of 2016 is in; the internet in the United States has gotten faster. Fixed broadband customers have seen the biggest jump in performance with download speeds achieving an average of over 50 Mbps for the first time ever. This improvement is more than a 40% increase since July 2015. Overall, the fixed broadband industry has seen consolidation, speed upgrades and, thankfully, growth in fiber optic deployments from upstarts like Google Fiber to industry titans like XFINITY and AT&T to other regional internet service providers.

Mobile internet customers have also seen performance gains, improving by more than 30% since last year with an average download speed of 19.27 Mbps in the first six months of 2016. The four major mobile carriers—Verizon Wireless, T-Mobile, AT&T and Sprint—are in a tight race for fastest download speeds. All four are also aggressively competing on price to attract new subscribers.

Competition is a good thing, and while we’re seeing faster performance than ever before, the internet in the U.S. could certainly improve. The U.S. still lags from an international perspective, currently ranking 20th in fixed broadband and 42nd in mobile internet performance globally.

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### U.S. Fixed Broadband Speeds

#### TEST COUNT:

59,915,997

#### 1-YEAR CHANGE (DOWNLOAD):

42 %

#### 1-YEAR CHANGE (UPLOAD):

51 %

### Faster than ever before

The typical fixed broadband consumer in the U.S. saw average download speeds greater than 50 Mbps for the first time ever during the first six months of 2016, topping out at 54.97 Mbps in June. This laudable milestone is a 42% increase in download speed year-over-year. While this average speed is more than sufficient for typical activities like browsing the web and streaming video content, 50 Mbps is a small fraction of the speed offered from gigabit fiber optic internet. Upload speed saw an even bigger increase, improving by over 50% since last year, with the average consumer receiving an upload speed of 18.88 Mbps.

While the average consumer is doing well enough, not every American is receiving sufficient speeds. In a recent Broadband Progress Report released by the FCC, 10% of Americans lack access to the FCC target speeds of 25 Mbps download and 3 Mbps upload. This number increases to 39% when looking at rural populations. It’s important to note, however, that the largest concentration of the U.S. population resides in urban areas and only 4% of urban Americans lack access to those speeds. It is also worth noting that the FCC goals weigh download speed as a much more important metric than upload speed because download speed has the largest impact on how users experience and consume content on the internet. We agree with this approach and place a higher premium on download speed in our analysis as a result.

### Growth in fiber optic

Growth in fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) connectivity continued to increase in the U.S. in 2015. Greater consumer demand for the speeds offered by fiber technology has also pushed providers to offer faster non-fiber speeds. As a result, non-fiber speeds increased in urban and suburban areas. While Verizon, one of the first fiber providers, has been around for years, Google Fiber has undoubtedly been the predominant public face of the rise of fiber in the U.S. Google Fiber initially offered service in Kansas City in September 2012 and has continued to grow its service locations through infrastructure development and acquisition. The fiber trend is also being adopted by municipal and community-owned providers that are able to deliver affordable and extremely high-performing service in urban, suburban and rural areas alike. Smaller ISPs, like Tachus in Houston and PAXIO in the San Francisco Bay Area, are using fiber offerings as a way to differentiate themselves in regional markets.

### Market consolidation

The U.S. telecom sector has seen considerable consolidation over the past two years with AT&T’s acquisition of DirecTV and Altice USA’s (parent company of Suddenlink) purchase of Cablevision in 2015. However, 2016’s merger of Charter Communications, Time Warner Cable (TWC) and Bright House Networks has the largest potential impact on customers.

After Comcast’s failed bid to acquire TWC, Charter Communications purchased both TWC and Bright House Networks. The new combined company is known as Spectrum. Spectrum is now the second largest fixed broadband provider in the country (behind Comcast) with control of roughly 30% of the U.S. consumer fixed broadband market. The merger was approved by the FCC and the U.S. Department of Justice after several concessions from Charter to cease overage fees and assure no data caps for 7 years.

Both TWC and Bright House saw marked performance speed increases over the first six months of this year, while Charter showed little to no improvement nationwide. It is currently unclear if Spectrum will push for network performance improvements that follow the model employed by TWC and Bright House, or if it will follow a path more closely aligned to the relatively flat performance employed recently by Charter.

### Looking ahead

Market consolidation by large ISPs doesn’t typically bode well for innovation and increased speeds. That said, U.S. consumer appetite for more speed is insatiable. With the growth of municipal and locally-focused fiber deployments, as well as network infrastructure investments from the big ISPs, the U.S. is likely to see continued performance gains in the coming year. Time will tell whether those gains will be incremental or a larger step toward gigabit speeds.

### U.S. Fastest ISPs

### Download

#### FASTEST: XFINITY

Comcast’s XFINITY made few substantial investments on its network in the past year after delivering faster speeds within each tier in 2015. Instead, their focus has shifted to improving customer service and building their brand to be more customer friendly. They still offer multiple high-level tiers with 105 Mbps, 150 Mbps, 250 Mbps to residential users with speed options in some areas at 505 Mbps and 2Gbps.

### Upload

#### FASTEST: Verizon

A major player in most arenas, Verizon offers fiber optic internet in locations across the country. Many ISPs prioritize download speed over upload speed, but Verizon puts a special emphasis on creating symmetric links, to make the upload just as fast as the download speed.

### Top-end tiers get faster

During the first half of 2016, U.S. broadband top 10% download performance increased from 99.03 Mbps to 117.91 Mbps. The largest contributions to this increase came in the month of June from XFINITY and Cox Communications with average download speeds of 132.08 Mbps and 162.14 Mbps, respectively. The newly-created Spectrum was also a top-three contributor, ending the same period with a combined 131.97 Mbps.

Verizon, AT&T U-verse and CenturyLink all remained below 100 Mbps download. However, they have all shown modest improvement since the start of 2016. Despite the lower download speed, Verizon continues to shadow other top providers with its fast upload speeds, ending June at 97.71 Mbps. For comparison, Spectrum achieved the second fastest upload speed at the end of June with 23.37 Mbps.

### XFINITY is fastest, again

XFINITY took fastest ISP in the U.S. with a top-tier download speed of 125.53 Mbps. XFINITY’s top download speeds have been consistently higher than those of other ISPs over the last year, though in the last couple months that gap has been closing. Despite the fastest download speeds, XFINITY claimed fourth place in upload speed with 15.26 Mbps.

### Don’t count out Cox

Cox Communications came in second place in both download (117.85 Mbps) and upload (22.61 Mbps) speeds. Despite planned network improvements, we’ve seen relatively minor speed improvements from Cox since July 2015 until download speeds exploded in May and June of 2016. Cox increased download speeds 35% from 119.98 Mbps in April 2016 to 162.14 Mbps by the end of June. With Cox’s launch of their new G1GABLAST gigabit service in select areas, this pattern of increasing speed will likely continue and presumably place them in prime position to rise to the number one spot in U.S. download speed by the end of this year.

### Spectrum, a new contender

Spectrum, the newly formed merger of Charter, TWC and Bright House, has the potential to greatly impact consumer speeds across the nation due to some promising pre-merger trends from TWC and Bright House. Charter was relatively flat between January and April of 2016 with an improvement of only 1.24 Mbps in top-tier speeds. TWC, however, improved its top-tier download speed by 34.54 Mbps from January 2016 to 152.70 Mbps in May 2016 when the merger took place. Bright House’s top download speed also increased to 152.16 Mbps, a gain of 21.02 Mbps from January, prior to the merger. Both TWC and Bright House’s network improvements helped Spectrum show an initial top download speed of 131.97 Mbps at the end of June 2016. We hope that Spectrum’s top-tier download speed continues to improve over the remainder of the year.

### Verizon has the fastest upload

As mentioned earlier, Verizon’s fiber optic services achieved far higher upload speeds than other popular service providers. In 2012, Verizon launched its now retired FiOS Quantum product, which offered speeds of up to 300 Mbps down and 65 Mbps up. They now offer symmetrical internet services with speeds of up to 500 Mbps. Verizon’s download speed hovered around 83.91 Mbps at the start of January 2016 and ended June 2016 at 94.98 Mbps. Despite this slight increase, Verizon still falls squarely in the middle of the major U.S. providers for top download speeds.

#### HOW SPEEDTEST MEASURES FIXED BROADBAND

ISPs offering fixed broadband services are ranked based on top 10% performance, which is determined using the 90th percentile of the download and upload speeds of each ISP’s Speedtest results. While many ISPs offer various service tiers, our aim is to determine who is fastest by showing the performance achieved by each residential ISP’s top tier. These speeds represent customers who subscribe to faster service tiers and provide an accurate view of the top-end performance of a given ISP. It is important to note that customers subscribing to higher tiers will generally pay more for their service than the average subscriber. For purposes of this report, only Top Providers in a given location were included in the analysis. Each ISP that accounts for at least 3% of the total sample size in the geographic area is included as a Top Provider. When analyzing the U.S. overall, we use the average speed, as it represents the experience of a typical U.S. consumer. When comparing ISPs individually, we use top 10% performance, as it represents the performance a consumer could reasonably expect to receive if they subscribe to one of the ISP’s higher tiers of service.

### DSL providers invest in fiber

AT&T U-verse saw fairly stagnant download and upload speeds with an average top download speed of 49.78 Mbps, which only beat out CenturyLink. AT&T U-verse also turned in the worst upload speed among major providers with 7.49 Mbps. AT&T’s lower download speed DSL variants (starting at just 6 Mbps in some markets) have been a staple in many locations for years, contributing directly to their low position on the leaderboard.

AT&T is now investing in fiber technology through their new GigaPower brand, which will hopefully provide a much needed boost to their high-speed offerings. AT&T’s investments in their fiber network build-outs are the provider’s priority right now since they are holding off on further mobile expansion until 5G upgrades are ready to be made.

CenturyLink didn’t offer up much competition during the first half of this year. They came last in top-tier download speed with 39.85 Mbps. As of May 2016, CenturyLink is providing more than 1.5 million customers across the U.S. with their fiber “GPON” gigabit service. This offering should help increase their performance in time.

### U.S. Mobile Internet Speeds

#### TEST COUNT:

13,167,061

#### 1-YEAR CHANGE (DOWNLOAD):

33 %

#### 1-YEAR CHANGE (UPLOAD):

28 %

### Faster mobile, but flat in 2016

Average mobile internet speeds are indeed faster than they were a year ago, with download speeds up by 33% and upload speeds improved by 28%. However, download speed growth only improved by 5% to reach 19.61 Mbps during the first six months of 2016. Average upload speeds saw a slight drop of -1% to 7.94 Mbps. The slow performance growth rate in 2016 thus far indicates that the major carriers likely weren’t able to keep up with the data capacity needs of consumers.

Mobile phones are the most popular way for consumers to connect to the internet in the U.S. According to OECD data, there were almost 3.5 wireless broadband subscribers in the U.S. for every fixed broadband subscriber in June 2015. We suspect this ratio has increased since then, and will continue to do so. Consumers’ increased mobile internet usage will continue to put strain on the cellular network infrastructure, which will likely drive carriers to invest in network capacity rather than just investing in coverage alone.

### Network improvements

The gain in year-over-year speeds mentioned above can be attributed to an increase in competition by the four major carriers—Verizon Wireless, T-Mobile, AT&T and Sprint—all of which have made investments in their networks. Over the past year, Sprint led the way by increasing their download speeds by an impressive 57%. AT&T followed with a download speed increase of 45%. T-Mobile and Verizon Wireless had more modest increases with 26% and 18%, respectively. Despite AT&T and Sprint’s improvement, Verizon Wireless and T-Mobile remain the fastest in the U.S.

### Regional carriers

While this report focuses on the dominant four carriers in the U.S., there are some regional players with competitive speeds that are worth mentioning. During the first half of 2016, Nsight in Wisconsin achieved the fastest average download speed in the country at 24.26 Mbps (7.76 Mbps upload), but fell short of reaching nationwide recognition because of their regional focus and very low test count. Additional regional carriers with speed results within the results range of the major carriers include: Appalachian Wireless (19.47 Mbps down and 11.58 Mbps up - second only to T-Mobile in upload speeds); United Wireless (14.09 Mbps down, 9.46 Mbps up); and Keystone Wireless (14.01 Mbps down, 4.02 Mbps up).

### What about MVNOs?

Mobile virtual network operators (MVNOs) are another category of mobile providers that play a major role in the U.S. market. MVNOs lease network bandwidth from the four major carriers and resell those services to consumers. In some cases, major providers like T-Mobile and AT&T own their own MVNOs: Metro PCS from T-Mobile and Cricket Wireless from AT&T.

MVNOs are important because they offer prepaid and/or less expensive packages than the standard plans offered through major carriers. These plans tend to be more appealing and accessible to consumers who are unwilling or unable to spend upwards of $50 per month on mobile phone service. By offering a less expensive option, MVNOs enable many people to access the internet who might not otherwise be able to get online.

However, MVNO users often experience slower speeds due to added network complexity and even throttling. Given this issue with MVNO speeds, we have removed MVNO tests from the big four carriers’ network results so as to accurately represent what customers of those networks actually received in the first half of 2016.

### U.S. Fastest Mobile Carriers

### Download

#### FASTEST: Verizon Wireless & T-Mobile

Both Verizon Wireless and T-Mobile achieve download speeds faster than 21 Mbps. The difference between them is so slight, less than 1%, that we consider the two in a dead heat for fastest download in the United States. Performance does vary from state to state, which can be viewed later in the report.

### Upload

#### FASTEST: T-Mobile

With upload performance, T-Mobile is the fastest with speeds exceeding 11 Mbps, making them a good choice for consumers who are sharing lots of content from their mobile phone.

### T-Mobile, Verizon Wireless are fastest

During the first half of 2016, Verizon Wireless had an average download speed for modern devices (those capable of achieving 4G LTE speeds) of 21.11 Mbps. T-Mobile achieved a nearly identical download speed at 21.02 Mbps. In fact, less than 1% separated the average download speeds between Verizon Wireless and T-Mobile, a difference so slight that we consider the two carriers tied for fastest download performance. Verizon Wireless and T-Mobile have been highly competitive with each other for quite a while, with less than 5% separating their average download speeds since the beginning of 2015.

When comparing upload performance, T-Mobile has been on top since early 2014 with the fastest speeds among the four major U.S. carriers. T-Mobile’s upload speed of 11.59 Mbps during the first half of 2016 was over 40% faster than any of the other major carriers.

LTE is now pervasive across each of the four major carrier networks. When looking strictly at tests conducted over LTE, T-Mobile performed the best with an average download speed of 22.11 Mbps. Verizon Wireless came in second, slightly behind T-Mobile, with an average download speed of 21.32 Mbps. AT&T and Sprint followed with 20.05 Mbps and 15.80 Mbps, respectively. However, LTE network coverage is also important to consider. While T-Mobile has the fastest LTE network, they trail Verizon Wireless in LTE network coverage. Verizon Wireless was the clear coverage winner, with 98% of test samples from LTE-capable devices taking place on their LTE network. T-Mobile came in second at 95%, followed by AT&T and Sprint tied at 93%. Ultimately, Verizon Wireless’ more extensive LTE network bolstered their overall results and created a virtual tie for overall performance with T-Mobile.

#### HOW SPEEDTEST MEASURES MOBILE CARRIERS

The top mobile carriers in the U.S. are ranked using the average download speed of “Modern Devices” - those devices that are capable of connecting to the fastest, broadly-available wireless networks. In the U.S., this means devices capable of 4G LTE. This ensures we provide an accurate view of the typical performance a user can achieve using a modern smartphone or tablet on a given mobile network. Each top carrier accounts for at least 3% of the sample size in the geographic area.

Looking at the U.S. states individually, which you can browse at the bottom of this report, Verizon Wireless was the fastest in 20, while T-Mobile was fastest in 18. AT&T followed with 11 states, and Sprint was fastest in only 2.

### AT&T, Sprint getting faster

AT&T and Sprint have ranked lower than Verizon Wireless and T-Mobile over the past two years, though in 2016 they increasingly closed the gap by making great improvements to their download speeds. Over the past year, AT&T had the largest raw improvement of the four major U.S. carriers with an increase of 5.85 Mbps to 19.94 Mbps by the end of June 2016, a 42% improvement. Meanwhile, Sprint had the largest percentage-based performance improvement of the four major U.S. carriers, increasing their speed over the previous year by 54%, going from 9.99 Mbps to 15.42 Mbps. Sprint still trails the other three major U.S. carriers, but they are making a strong push to close the gap.

### Speeds by City

### Speeds by State

## Market Summary

If you’re an optimist, you’ll see an annual 40% increase in fixed broadband performance and a 30% increase in mobile internet performance as a big step in the right direction. For the skeptics among us, you’ll recognize that current speeds in the U.S. are still much slower than what many other countries receive.

In fixed broadband, a slow, steady march toward fiber optic networks has the potential to bring a quantum leap in speeds to many U.S. markets in the coming years. However, while ISPs are competing on speed, many consumers in the U.S. still only have a single high speed choice available in their homes. Additionally, provider consolidation presents a big risk that ISPs won’t be motivated to invest in performance gains.

Mobile internet in the U.S. is faster than ever before, but performance growth during the first half of 2016 has been largely flat. Carriers are aggressively focusing on network capacity to combat the insatiable data usage of U.S. mobile consumers; people are using mobile internet more and more. The coming arrival of 5G looms on the horizon with the promise of huge performance gains, but we likely won’t see those networks turn up until at least 2020.

Regardless of your disposition, the next several quarters will certainly be interesting.

Editor’s note: This report was updated on November 28, 2017 to change Verizon Fios to read as Verizon throughout.

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