The Fastest ISPs in the U.S. 2011

Next to the speed of your computer, your Internet speed—the bandwidth of the pipe you use for downloading and uploading data—is the most important thing in your computing arsenal. The world is moving to the cloud and without a fast connection, you'll be left behind.

The question is, who provides the most bang for your buck? That's where we come in. When it comes to the Internet Service Providers (ISPs) that deliver service your home or office, we're here to let you know who's the fastest. Typically, this involves wire-based services, but we're seeing wireless companies encroach more and more each year. For a look at the best mobile providers, check out our Fastest Mobile Networks 2011 story.

In previous years, our tests focused on browsing download speeds. However, with video streaming and massive uploads/downloads becoming the norm, we realized we needed to change our methodology. We listened to your feedback and turned our attention to Ookla, a leader in broadband testing and Web-based network diagnostic applications, and its popular (and proven) product Speedtest.net. Speedtest.net is almost the de facto standard for testing connection speeds. Ookla set us up with our own PCMag branded version of the test. We ran the test over the course of three months for the purposes of this story (it continues to run at http://pcmag.speedtest.net, so give it a try). The data used in this story was gathered during that time period. We used the final download/upload speed to generate an index number to pick our winners, weighting downloads at 80 percent and uploads at 20 percent in terms of importance.

We also compared the data collected from our readers with the overall data Ookla keeps on permanent display at its Net Index site (numbers were collected from the site on August 5, 2011). More information on how Speedtest.net works can be found in the Methodology section of this story.—Next: The Fastest ISPs in the Nation >

About Our Expert

Eric Griffith

Senior Editor, Features

My Experience

I've been writing about computers, the internet, and technology professionally since 1992, more than half of that time with PCMag. I arrived at the end of the print era of PC Magazine as a senior writer. I served for a time as managing editor of business coverage before settling back into the features team for the last decade and a half. I write features on all tech topics, plus I handle several special projects, including the Readers' Choice and Business Choice surveys and yearly coverage of the Best ISPs and Best Gaming ISPs, Best Products of the Year, and Best Brands (plus the Best Brands for Tech Support, Longevity, and Reliability).

I started in tech publishing right out of college, writing and editing stories about hardware and development tools. I migrated to software and hardware coverage for families, and I spent several years exclusively writing about the then-burgeoning technology called Wi-Fi. I was on the founding staff of several magazines, including Windows Sources, FamilyPC, and Access Internet Magazine. All of which are now defunct, and it's not my fault. I have freelanced for publications as diverse as Sony Style, Playboy.com, and Flux. I got my degree at Ithaca College in, of all things, television/radio. But I minored in writing so I'd have a future.

In my long-lost free time, I wrote some novels, a couple of which are not just on my hard drive: BETA TEST ("an unusually lighthearted apocalyptic tale," according to Publishers' Weekly) and a YA book called KALI: THE GHOSTING OF SEPULCHER BAY. Go get them on Kindle.

I work from my home in Ithaca, NY, and did it long before pandemics made it cool.

The Technology I Use

My first computer was a Laser 128, an Apple II-compatible clone with an integrated keyboard, matched with an eye-straining monochrome green monitor. I used it to type papers in college for other people for money...until I discovered the Mac SE in the college computer room. That changed my life. My first cellphone was a Samsung Uproar—the silver one with the built-in MP3 player from the Napster days (the pre-iPod era).

I use an iPhone 15 Pro hourly and an iPad Air infrequently (but I'm always in the market for a cheap Android tablet). I have a PlayStation 5 just to play Spider-Man, and several Windows machines, including a work-issued Lenovo ThinkPad. I talk to Alexa and Siri all day long. I do the majority of my computing on a 15-inch LG Gram laptop attached to a Thunderbolt hub to run a multi-monitor setup—I overdid it on the power needed to simply work from home.

I'm most at home in Microsoft Word after decades of writing there. More and more, I turn to services like Google Docs, using tools like Grammarly. I use Google's Chrome browser due to an addiction to several extensions I think I can't live without, but probably could. I use Excel extensively on data-intensive stories, but for chart creation, we've switched over entirely to using Infogram for interactive features that are hard to find elsewhere. I do a lot of graphics work for my stories, but limit myself to the free and amazing Paint.NET software to edit images.

I'm a firm evangelist for using the cloud for backup and syncing of files; I'm primarily using Dropbox, which has never failed me, but I also have redundant setups on Microsoft OneDrive, plus extra picture backups on Amazon Photos and iCloud. Why take chances? For entertainment, mine is a streaming-only household—my kid has never seen network TV and barely been exposed to commercials, thanks to Roku and Amazon Music. The house is peppered with smart speakers from Amazon for instant gratification and control of smart home devices like multiple Wyze cameras and Nest Protect smoke detectors. I've got accounts on all the major social networks, to my horror. I have a robot vacuum for each floor of the house. I want a 3D printer, but not sure what I'd use it for.

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