Ookla

The number of states with 60% or more users experiencing the Federal Communications Commission’s minimum standard for fixed broadband speeds of 100 Mbps downstream and 20 Mbps upstream increased from nine states in the first half (1H) 2024 to 22 states (and the District of Columbia) in 2H 2024. Seven states have 65% of more users experiencing the FCC’s minimum standard for broadband of 100/20 Mbps. New Mexico, Colorado, and Minnesota had the biggest year-over-year increase in the percentage of Speedtest users that receive 100/20 Mbps broadband speeds. New Jersey, Connecticu

Fixed wireless access has steadily gained popularity in the U.S. over the past four years and now the service has more than 11.5 million subscribers—and that’s just counting the FWA subscribers from the big three nationwide operators. Today, FWA is considered a viable broadband competitor, and its traction with customers has caused many cable operators to lose customers to FWA. 

Having reached much of their 5G coverage and capacity goals in the urban and suburban areas of the U.S. in 2023, the big-three national U.S. wireless operators have turned their attention toward expanding their 5G networks into rural markets. This strategy is intended to help operators acquire new subscribers, particularly as growth in the urban and suburban markets has slowed. But the big three U.S. wireless operators have taken very different approaches when it comes to expanding their 5G networks into less-densely populated areas. 

Customers of the two biggest cable mobile virtual network operators (MVNO) in the U.S.—Charter’s Spectrum Mobile and Comcast’s Xfinity Mobile—are both enjoying an impressive upward trajectory in their overall network performance. In their respective service areas over the past two years, Spectrum Mobile and Xfinity Mobile users’ download speeds increased by more than 100 Mbps.

The Maine Connectivity Authority (MCA) recently made it possible for homes and businesses in remote locations of the state to become eligible to receive low-Earth orbit satellite internet service from Starlink. According to Ookla data, Starlink Speedtest users in Maine are able to get median download speeds of 116.77 Mbps, which surpasses the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) threshold for broadband. Maine is a Top 10 state in Ookla’s U.S.

More than 80% of Canadians have access to fixed broadband networks, but for rural Canadians that figure drops to just 60%. Yet, this gap between who has broadband access and who doesn't is closing in rural areas at a rate nearly three times faster than in urban areas.

Affordable, reliable, high-speed broadband is considered a necessity in the U.S.

To gain insight into the current performance of networks, we analyzed Speedtest® data in Q3 2023. Our analysis compares changes in 5G performance to the previous year, identifies the top 10 countries with the best performance, and discusses customer satisfaction with 5G. We also ranked countries based on the performance of their fixed networks and investigated the connectivity gap across the world. Key takeways: