Two State Broadband Rankings Tell Different Stories
Access to lower-priced plans helped explain why the rankings differed
WASHINGTON, Oct. 22, 2026 — Average download speeds across state medians rose 25% in a year, but broadband rankings also exposed notable gaps in access to affordable service.
The average reached 133.7 Megabits per second (Mbps), said Tyler Cooper, editor in chief of BroadbandNow, a broadband comparison site and research group. Median download speeds reached at least 100 Mbps in 48 of 51 jurisdictions, including Washington, D.C., up from 31 a year earlier. Cooper presented the findings Wednesday at a Broadband Breakfast Live Online session on the best and worst states for broadband.
A separate analysis by Ookla, a company that measures internet speeds and network performance, also tracked progress while highlighting rural–urban gaps. Ookla compared the share of tested users in rural and urban areas whose connections met the federal broadband benchmark of 100 Mbps download and 20 Mbps upload, or 100 * 20 Mbps. Its state rankings differed from BroadbandNow’s.
BroadbandNow’s ranking assigned 35% of its score to wired service availability and 30% to access to plans costing $60 a month or less. Download speed, upload speed and latency each accounted for 10%. Fiber availability made up the remaining 5%. Latency measures the time data takes to travel from a user’s device to a server and back.
Affordable service helps separate the states
Mid-Atlantic and New England states claimed the top four spots on BroadbandNow’s list, led by New Jersey with a score of 97.4 out of 100. Plans costing $60 a month or less were available to 98.4% of its households. Maryland, Connecticut and Massachusetts followed.
Alaska, the nation’s most sparsely populated state, finished last for at least the fourth consecutive year. Wired or fixed wireless service reached 76.7% of households, but plans costing $60 or less reached just 0.1%. Its median download speed was the country’s slowest at 49.6 Mbps.
Access to lower-priced plans helped explain why the rankings differed. North Dakota placed in Ookla’s top 10 but ranked 26th on BroadbandNow’s list, with plans costing $60 or less available to only 68.5% of households. Tennessee also placed in Ookla’s top 10 but ranked 33rd on BroadbandNow’s list.
Extensive fiber coverage did not guarantee a high ranking, either. Kansas and Hawaii both had fiber available to 74.6% of households, yet both ranked in BroadbandNow’s bottom five. Kansas recorded the second-slowest median download speed at 58.4 Mbps, while Hawaii had the highest latency at 98.8 milliseconds.
The measures captured different aspects of broadband and should be considered together, said Paroma Sanyal, a principal at the economic consulting firm Brattle Group. Sanyal, a former chief economist in the Federal Communications Commission’s Wireless Telecommunications Bureau, said understanding those differences serve an important purpose in helping policymakers identify the appropriate intervention.
Competition can improve prices and speeds
Areas with more competing providers tended to have greater access to lower-priced plans, Cooper said. “What we see in areas that have more competition is we see higher access to low-cost broadband.”
Competition also pushed providers to offer faster speeds, Sanyal said. She suggested that the long discussed “convergence” among fiber, cable, fixed wireless and satellite services, long anticipated by the industry, might finally be emerging.
South Carolina’s rankings reveal different strengths
South Carolina fell further than any other state on BroadbandNow’s list, from 20th to 40th. Its median upload speed was 18.6 Mbps, and latency was 31.8 milliseconds. Scores were tightly bunched, Cooper said, so small differences could move a state several places.
Ookla’s analysis highlighted a different strength. South Carolina was the only state where a slightly larger share of rural than urban tested users met the federal broadband benchmark, said Sue Marek, Ookla’s editorial director. The Federal Communications Commission set that benchmark in 2024 at 100 Mbps download and 20 Mbps upload.
The findings measured different things. BroadbandNow compared South Carolina with other states using performance, availability and affordability. Ookla compared the share of rural and urban users meeting the speed benchmark within the state.
Marek attributed part of South Carolina’s rural performance to sustained efforts to connect rural hospitals and schools, crediting Rep. Jim Clyburn, D-S.C.
The rural gap is narrowing
The rural–urban gap in meeting the broadband benchmark narrowed in every state except California, Delaware and Illinois, according to Ookla’s analysis.
Substantial differences persisted within some states, including Washington state, Illinois, New Mexico, Oregon and Missouri.
Mountains and forests complicated network construction, while sparse populations left providers with fewer potential customers to cover the costs, Marek said. She also pointed to substantial income differences within New Mexico and Missouri as factors in their connectivity gaps.
Starlink showed little rural–urban divide
Rural and urban users recorded similar results on Starlink, SpaceX’s satellite internet service, Marek said. Among its tested users, the share meeting the broadband benchmark more than doubled, from 18.9% to 40%. Marek attributed most of the improvement to faster uploads as SpaceX launched more and newer satellites.
Geographic differences remained. Alaska had Starlink’s lowest share of tested users meeting the benchmark at 24.6%. Marek linked that performance to satellite paths and the placement of ground stations, which connect satellites to the wider internet.
BroadbandNow’s ranking did not include satellite, but it recorded an expanding fiber footprint. Average state fiber availability rose from 49.7% to 56.6% of households.
Both technologies are set to expand through the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment program, the $42.45 billion construction grant program created by the 2021 infrastructure law. Approved state plans assign about 22% of locations to satellite and 63% to fiber.
