(Credit: Zain bin Awais)
Fast, reliable internet access is an important part of life in today’s connected world, but for online gamers, it’s a must-have. Whether you’re dodging enemy fire, pulling off a clutch play, or rallying your squad to victory, a smooth, lag-free connection can mean the difference between dominating the leaderboard and staring at a game-over screen. But if you want the fastest and most reliable connection possible, which providers (ISPs) should you get your internet from?
That’s where our Best Gaming ISPs for 2025 report comes in. To determine which providers offer the smoothest and most reliable gaming experience you can possibly get, we analyze thousands of internet speed tests from gamers across the country and combine them them with data on other important aspects of your connection, including jitter, latency, price, and availability (the latter of which come from our data partner Broadband Now). All of that information comes together to create our Cumulative Gaming ISP Index: a single, unified score that helps us compare providers more effectively.
The result? A definitive guide to the ISPs that deliver the performance you need to stay ahead of the competition. If you want to ensure your internet connection is helping you win rather than holding you back, these are the ISPs you should look to in 2025.
Want to become part of the story? Take the PCMag Speed Test to contribute data for your ISP. (Editors' Note: The PCMag Speed Test is operated by Ookla, which is owned by PCMag's parent company, Ziff Davis.)
If you live further north, be sure to check out our ranking of the Best Gaming ISPs in Canada for 2025.
The Best Major Gaming ISPs for 2025
What makes an ISP “major?” In order to carry this designation, a broadband provider must have at least 1 million internet customers across the country and must net at least 1,000 speed tests in a given year. All our other charts require only 100 tests.
Last year, Verizon Fios was the best gaming ISP among major providers, but this year a new contender has risen to claim the top spot: GFiber. Its coverage doesn’t match that of Verizon Fios, but it powers ahead in all of the other scores we consider—most notably gaming quality, speed, price, and overall satisfaction.
There are some other noteworthy wins here, too. Midwestern broadband provider MetroNet beats GFiber when it comes to gaming quality, earning a perfect score of 20 in our Gaming Quality Index, and a perfect 10 for speed. It’s also equal to GFiber on coverage and price according to BroadbandNow’s data. The only reason MetroNet doesn't win our overall Reader's Choice Award this year is that not enough of its users took our ISP survey in mid-2024, so it doesn't earn a satisfaction rating. If it had that score, it would almost certainly be on top.
Another ISP of note is Astound Broadband, which was born out of the merger of many other ISPs. Despite still breaking out many of its tests under the old Grande and Wave brands, Astound doesn't show data for the bigger RCN brand it’s also built on. So we had no choice but to combine them all. Astound powered by RCN was the sixth-best gaming ISP last year; this year, combining all its tests into one entry put Astound in fifth.
Optimum is one of the few big ISPs that breaks out its speed tests by the connection technology it offers, so you’ll see it both as fiber and as cable in our info. Fiber-to-the-home providers, unsurprisingly, score better results for speed and gaming quality—which is why fiber-only companies like Fios, GFiber, and MetroNet dominate most charts. However, classic coaxial cable companies like Spectrum and Xfinity still perform well enough to make the top ten. That’s probably because even the smallest cable companies have begun to experiment with fiber—even if they don’t differentiate it out in our tests as Optimum does.
The Best Overall Gaming ISPs for 2025
Don't let the lack of the word "major" in this category fool you—there’s nothing minor about the top-scoring overall gaming ISPs. Even though the playing field jumps from 25 to 94 players, GFiber and Verizon Fios retain the top two slots, and GFiber wins again as the all-around best gaming ISP when combining speed, price, coverage, and satisfaction scores.
Things change radically after that. MetroNet might be third place among the major ISPs, but when all the country's eligible providers get a shot, it drops to 19th. Despite the identical scores and data on reach and price for MetroNet, several vendors jump ahead. Some are smaller ISPs like Sonic—which is, once again, the fastest ISP in the whole country. Others, like Frontier, Spectrum, and Xfinity, have higher scores because they compare much better against this many ISPs, especially after we convert the raw data into scores on a 1 to 10 scale (or 1 to 20 for gaming quality).
Special shout-out to Pulse, the 10-gig town-utility ISP in Loveland, Colorado. It’s a division of the town's water and power department, and like last year, it has the absolute best Gaming Quality Index score nationally, making it the only ISP with a perfect 20 score for gaming. Unlike last year, however, that score (plus some great speed and price ratings) put it in the top 10 overall.
If you’re wondering how satellite providers stack up, you’re probably in an area with limited broadband options. Let’s be clear: Satellite internet is not a great option for high-quality connections. Hughes and Viasat are two of the absolute worst when it comes to latency and jitter. Starlink fares better, but still lands at the number 82 spot for gaming quality. Because of the satellite usage blanketing the country, they all earn top ratings for coverage—but nationwide coverage isn’t enough for them to make the top ten lists featured here. However, Starlink does appear in a few charts below where ISP options are more limited. It does so thanks to a high satisfaction score from our survey and almost 100% coverage.
That puts Starlink in the company of some of the wireless carriers. Unfortunately, we can’t fully ascertain all of the options for the carriers because, for example, while Verizon breaks out its wireless tests from its DSL from its fiber, it doesn’t go the extra distance to break out 5G Home Internet customers from those using wireless connections. T-Mobile does even less. So, in our data, the speeds and quality numbers are for “Verizon Wireless” (a name it doesn’t even use anymore), but the coverage and pricing from BroadbandNow cover the 5G Home Service. We did the same for T-Mobile’s 5G and AT&T’s “Internet Air.”
According to Leichtman Research, Verizon and T-Mobile’s fixed-wireless 5G at home services are among the fastest-growing ISPs in the nation. Only one—T-Mobile—has any appearances below, coasting through on factors unrelated to connection quality. As such, we don't recommend them as gaming ISPs.
The Best ISPs for Gaming by US Region
Using the same breakdown of states as the US Census Bureau, we also zero in on which ISP is the best for gaming in each of the four US regions (Northeast, Midwest, South, and West), which are in turn divided into two to three divisions. Pass your cursor or finger over all nine divisions on the map to see which ISPs are the best for gaming in a particular area.
Note that the numbers you see in one chart don’t compare to other charts. The same ISP with the same numbers in a different division of the country could end up in a different spot after we perform our conversion on the 1 to 10 scale, as it’s based on the competition within the chart only.
Northeast
New England Division: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont
Best Gaming ISP: Verizon Fios
Fastest ISP: Verizon Fios
Verizon Fios may come in second place nationally, but it's definitely the best option if you live in the northeast (and in New England in particular). In addition to being the best for gaming in general (with a Cumulative Gaming ISP Index of 53.1 out of 60 and excellent ratings for gaming quality), it's also still the fastest ISP in those states. This win duplicates all the same titles Fios earned in this division last year.
GoNetSpeed also does well for itself in the northeast, posting scores that are almost on par with Fios when it comes to gaming quality. It has the second-best speed of all the ISPs in this division.
Middle Atlantic Division: New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania
Best Gaming ISP: Optimum Fiber
Fastest ISP: Optimum Fiber
Yet another repeat winner from last year is Optimum. The company's fiber-to-the-home service gives customers stellar speed and excellent gaming quality—more than enough to make it the top choice in the Middle Atlantic area. Its only big downside is low coverage, especially compared to Xfinity, T-Mobile, or even Fios. Fios came close to a win here. Its Cumulative Gaming ISP Index is only two-fifths of a point behind Optimum this year, which is pretty close to the gap the two had last time we did this report.
Midwest
East North Central Division: Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, and Wisconsin
Best Gaming ISP: MetroNet
Fastest ISP: MetroNet
Naturally, our fastest ISP nationally is also the fastest in its home territory. MetroNet is also the best gaming ISP here, period, with stellar gaming quality and pricing numbers that deliver a high score. It wins the division even without earning a Readers’ Choice overall satisfaction score to bolster it. The rest of the top five (Astound, Armstrong, Spectrum, and Xfinity) need those overall satisfaction scores to stay competitive.
The second-best gaming quality in this division goes to Omni Fiber, an ISP headquartered in Cincinnati, which happens to have the same backer as GoNetSpeed.
It's interesting to note a generic entry from AT&T in the top ten. Any “AT&T Internet” entries in our charts are specified by the company as a mix of all its internet connection technologies, be they DSL or Fiber. (AT&T does break out info for wireless connections, just not for its 5G-at-home service.) The high score here likely says some good things about the AT&T Fiber connections in the division, even if some old copper DSL is pulling it down.
West North Central Division: Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, and South Dakota
Best Gaming ISP: GFiber
Fastest ISP: Allo Fiber
When it comes to the central states, one ISP reigns supreme: GFiber. Google’s fiber-to-the-home (FttH) service earns the best overall satisfaction scores in this area.
However, it's not necessarily the fastest in the West North Central division. That title goes to Allo Fiber in Lincoln, Nebraska. Allo’s ratings come in just a tick behind GFiber, too. The only reason Allo doesn’t make the top ten is that it’s so small that our data partner, BroadbandNow, doesn't have any info on it.
Interestingly enough, this area also has the highest placement as a gaming ISP for T-Mobile. Although the company still has dismal gaming quality numbers overall, it makes up for them with excellent coverage, pricing, and satisfaction scores.
South
South Atlantic Division: Delaware, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, and West Virginia
Best Gaming ISP: GFiber
Fastest ISP: Fision by HotWire Communications
In the stretch from DC to Florida, GFiber doesn’t have a lot of reach. But it does have great gaming quality and prices. Put those next to its stellar overall satisfaction score and it's enough to give GFiber another best gaming ISP win. Verizon Fios is once again close behind, but relegated to second.
Serious gamers looking for the highest gaming quality in the South Atlantic area should turn to Hotwire. The company's Fision broadband service only delivers connections to “multi-dwelling units,” which narrows the places you can get it. But in this part of the country, Hotwire has not only the best gaming quality score, but it’s also over three times faster in throughput than GFiber, according to the PCMag Speed Index.
East South Central Division: Alabama, Kentucky, Mississippi, and Tennessee
Best Gaming ISP: Spectrum
Fastest ISP: Mountain Telephone
Companies best known for cable services, such as Comcast’s Xfinity or Charter Communications’ Spectrum, seldom pull off the speed and quality needed to win as Best Gaming ISP. In East South Central USA, that’s not the case. Last year, this division was won by Xfinity; this year Spectrum takes it. AT&T Fiber was between them previously, but, this year, AT&T stopped identifying its fiber connections in our data, so the generic “AT&T Internet” places at 6th. GFiber instead takes the second-place spot. But this final score is virtually a tie—thankfully, the decimal points go deep, enough to reveal Spectrum’s win by a mere 7/100th of a point.
Rural provider Mountain Telephone of West Liberty, Kentucky, is the fastest ISP in the division and the ISP with the best Gaming Quality Index. Its index is three points better than GFiber’s and EPB's in Chattanooga.
West South Central Division: Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Texas
Best Gaming ISP: GFiber
Fastest ISP: Fision by Hotwire Communications
GFiber won in this division last year. Much of what was said above about the South Atlantic applies here when it comes to GFiber and Fision. The difference is that, in the Western South Central states, Fision has almost 4x the throughput. More interesting is that the excellent Gaming Quality Index scores that GFiber and Fision both share are equaled by two other smaller FttH ISPs: Ezee Fiber of Houston and Tachus in The Woodlands.
West
Mountain Division: Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming
Best Gaming ISP: GFiber
Fastest ISP: Pulse
Again, the coverage is minimal, but for any gamer in the mountain states with access to GFiber would be wise to get it. The company has the best mixture of everything you need for gaming -- particularly speed and reliability.
That said, GFiber doesn’t have the best Gaming Quality Index score in the Mountain Division. That goes to Pulse in Loveland, Colorado. Its index score is the highest across all our tables, equaled only by Fision in the Pacific states (below). That means the jitter and latency on Pulse connections are so low they almost don’t exist.
This is also one of the few charts where SpaceX’s Starlink makes the top ten. The only reason that happens is that it has nationwide coverage, which is no small feat in these states which manifest extremely remote conditions. Starlink also uniformly has the worst pricing across every chart, always putting it at the bottom of the scores for cost.
Pacific Division: Alaska, California, Hawaii, Oregon, and Washington
Best Gaming ISP: GFiber
Fastest ISP: Fision by Hotwire Communications
GFiber certainly wins here easily, finishing almost two full points ahead of its nearest competitor, the equally hard-to-get Fision.
Fision is hampered by low coverage ratings, but also scores incredibly high for gaming quality and speed. Sonic, which is the fastest ISP across all the states, comes in second to Fision when we narrow the field down to California.
The Pacific division of states is difficult to quantify in some ways because Alaska and Hawaii are lumped in with the domestic West Coast states. If you’re curious about what gaming ISPs to consider in those far-off states, only one makes the cut in Alaska: GCI, the state's largest telco. It's the only option we have sufficient responses for, which gives it the win by default. In Hawaii, we typically see Spectrum taking on the local incumbent, Hawaiian Telecom (which is, oddly enough, owned by Cincinnati Bell, aka Altafiber, in Ohio). And it's the same thing this year. It has a better Gaming Quality Index and better speed, so with our cumulative methodology, the win goes to Hawaiian Telecom.
The Best ISPs: Full Results
Here are the complete tables for all the charts above, including ISPs beyond the top 10 in each location. Access each table using the arrows or drop-down menu at the top; click the top cell for each column to reorder the rows (and click again to reorder in the opposite direction).
Scores for speed and quality are based on 398,020 PCMag Speed Test results from US ISP users received between October 1, 2023, and November 22, 2024. For the full methodology, click here. Click below to test your ISP right now with the PCMag Speed Test.