Staff rating

3.6

Plans starting at $50.00

Download speeds up to 940 Mbps

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Staff rating

4.0

Customer rating

4.0

(76)

Plans starting at $30.00

Download speeds up to 940Mb

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Staff rating

3.0

Customer rating

4.0

(1)

Plans starting at $25.00

Download speeds up to 1000 Mbps

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Staff rating

3.6

We were extremely impressed with Brightspeed’s prices—you’ll be hard-pressed to find a better deal on gigabit fiber internet. While its fiber coverage area is growing, it currently remains very small. Plus, it's a brand-new provider so there are still a lot of unknowns.

What we like

No data caps or contracts
Reasonable pricing
Good availability on DSL

What we dislike

Mostly limited to DSL
New, unproven company

See full review

Savings tip: Brightspeed often has sign-up promotions for first-time customers. Call to ask a rep about current deals and discounts.

Check deals

Staff rating

4.0

Great fiber service, if you can get it

CenturyLink offers excellent fiber internet, but it’s available only in limited markets. If you can't get fiber, you may be able to get a DSL connection but you'll pay nearly as much.

What we like

Unlimited data across all plans
Fast fiber connections in select markets
No contracts

What we dislike

Limited fiber availability
Much slower DSL internet speeds
Below-average customer service

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Savings tip: CenturyLink often has sign-up promotions for first-time customers. Call to ask a rep about current deals and discounts.

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Staff rating

3.0

Rise Broadband brings good speeds and great prices to rural customers

Rise Broadband offers competitive fixed wireless speeds at reasonable prices for rural customers. While it won’t compete with your typical fiber or cable internet service, it offers a compelling alternative to satellite.

What we like

Strong rural availability
More data than satellite
Low latency

What we dislike

Limited speeds
weather can impact service

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Savings tip: Rise Broadband often has sign-up promotions for first-time customers. Call to ask a rep about current deals and discounts.

Check deals

Value

4.0

Excellent fiber deals (and decent DSL)

Brightspeed is slowly building out a fiber network that offers a pretty great value at $65 per month for up to 940 Mbps. That’s just 7 cents per Mbps, which puts it right in line with top fiber providers like AT&T. Unfortunately, this fiber service is still not widely available.

Because Brightspeed’s fiber footprint is still fairly small, the vast majority of Brightspeed’s current service offerings are DSL. That means that you’re going to pay more money for less speed—it’s just the nature of the DSL beast.

The upshot is that Brightspeed’s DSL prices are actually pretty competitive, starting at $50 per month. With advertised speeds of up to 140 Mbps (but often lower, depending on where you live), that puts the provider at about 36 cents per Mbps. This, of course, falls far short of most cable and fiber providers.

Learn more about the differences between fiber and DSL internet.

Pricing details vary by location. Visit

Brightspeed's website

or call 1-833-438-0878 to speak with a rep.

See pricing

Value

4.0

Great fiber value meets high-cost, low-performance DSL plans

CenturyLink offers two types of plans, depending on your location. The more common option is DSL, which is relatively slow and offers inconsistent speeds. The other option is fiber, which is extremely fast and reliable.

Generally speaking, the DSL options are not a great value. The price is reasonable, but the speeds mean you’re likely to get more for your money elsewhere (this is true for many DSL providers). The fiber plans are a much better value—they offer much more speed for the money than CenturyLink’s DSL plans and are competitive with other providers’ fiber offerings. In fact, CenturyLink's 940 Mbps plan costs a little more than half of the national benchmark for similar plans. (1) We highly recommend CenturyLink fiber if you have it available.

Pricing details vary by location. Visit

CenturyLink's website

or call 1-833-804-2792 to speak with a rep.

See pricing

Value

3.0

Much better value than satellite, but won't compete with traditional cable or fiber

Rise Broadband is a tough service to rate because it’s not your typical ISP. Rise Broadband provides what’s known as fixed wireless service, which means the signal is beamed from a tower wirelessly to your home (rather than running through cable or fiber lines). It’s also generally aimed more at rural areas where cable lines don’t exist. This means it primarily competes with satellite internet and DSL. All this has to be taken into account when considering value.

So, where does Rise stand? Compared to DSL and satellite, it’s an outstanding value. It offers better performance and higher data allowances (with an unlimited data add-on available) than satellite and DSL, and at significantly lower prices. That said, if you’re in an area that has a cable or fiber option, you may find that those providers offer more for your money.

Pricing details vary by location. Visit

Rise Broadband's website

or call 1-844-719-8068 to speak with a rep.

See pricing

Performance

4.0

Impressive fiber speeds

Impressive is definitely the right word to describe Brightspeed’s performance. The fiber service is excellent, with symmetrical speeds up to 940 Mbps. Symmetrical speed means the upload and download speeds are equal, which makes for much better overall performance compared to typical services where upload is significantly slower.

The DSL service is competitive with most other DSL providers, and seems to be fairly reliable—although we have heard some complaints of outages and interruptions. That said, it is DSL, so you’re only going to get limited speeds.

Our main concern with Brightspeed’s performance is simply how new the company is. It hasn’t had a chance to prove itself yet, and there may be growing pains as it builds out its fiber network. That said, we don’t expect many issues with DSL, since Brightspeed basically inherited the infrastructure directly from CenturyLink.

Available speeds vary by location. Call 1-833-438-0878 to speak with a Brightspeed rep or

go to its website.

Performance

4.5

Performance is excellent for areas with fiber access

There’s a performance divide based on the type of service available. The CenturyLink DSL plans can range from 15 to 100 Mbps, which is a wide range. Additionally, 15 Mbps just isn’t great these days. It doesn’t even reach broadband speeds (25 Mbps or more). That said, you shouldn’t have to worry about getting the advertised speed—whatever plan you sign up for, you seem to get what you pay for with CenturyLink.

On the other hand, the fiber plans offer Gigabit speeds (up to 940 Mbps), which is excellent. Additionally, fiber internet offers synchronous download speeds and upload speeds, meaning you can game, video chat, or upload large files just as fast as you binge Netflix. Fiber also tends to be inherently reliable because of the way the technology works—the light signals in fiber optic cables can carry more information over longer distances than coaxial cables. We have no complaints about performance on these plans.

Available speeds vary by location. Call 1-833-804-2792 to speak with a CenturyLink rep or

go to its website.

Performance

3.0

Better performance than other rural options

Performance-wise, Rise Broadband offers solid speeds—with the caveat that we’re comparing internet options in rural areas here. Most coverage areas have a choice of 25 Mbps and 50 Mbps plans, and some select areas have up to 100 Mbps available. These speeds would be pretty bad in areas with more options. However, if you’re considering fixed wireless, you probably don’t have many more options.

Compared to a satellite provider like Viasat, these speeds are about average—maybe even a little slow. However, fixed wireless like Rise won’t suffer from the huge latency of satellite internet, which makes it much more usable for gaming and other real-time tasks. Rise should handle HD streaming in a small household without too much trouble. You can optionally add unlimited data for an extra $10 per month, which makes a big difference without making the price unreasonable.

Available speeds vary by location. Call 1-844-719-8068 to speak with a Rise Broadband rep or

go to its website.

Equipment and installation

3.5

Decent equipment and self-install options

Brightspeed installation is relatively straightforward. The professional installation has a $99 fee attached, which is pretty standard, but self-installation is free. You’ll probably have to go for the pro install with a fiber plan, since you’ll need an optical network terminal (ONT) installed.

For DSL service, you have a choice of professional installation or self-installation, though you can only self-install DSL service if you already have a phone jack in your home. If you don’t, a technician will have to come out and add one.

The equipment is also straightforward. You get a basic wireless gateway (a combination modem and router) that’ll get you online and handle the speeds for your plan. There are none of the mesh systems and other fancy extras some providers offer, but it’ll do the job. Equipment rental will run you $15 per month, which is fairly standard.

That’s kind of the theme with Brightspeed’s equipment and installation process. There’s nothing bad or out of the ordinary, but there’s also nothing particularly interesting or exciting about it.

Equipment and installation options can vary widely depending on

Brightspeed plans

available in your area.

View plans

Equipment and installation

4.5

A fee for self-installation, but good equipment at a decent price

CenturyLink installation is more or less on par with other providers in terms of installation procedures and costs. If your neighborhood is wired for only DSL with CenturyLink, you can have your internet service set up by a pro for somewhere between $129 and $300 based on the installation requirements. You can alternatively choose to do a self-install for $15.

If you live in an area wired for CenturyLink fiber, your pro installation and equipment rental are free, and you may be able to self-install for free. You could also wrangle unlimited data and an included mesh wireless network if you sign a contract, so be sure to ask. This is about on par with other fiber internet providers.

Find out whether you need a professional to come by or if you can handle setup yourself.

As for equipment, the CenturyLink modem and router are also pretty standard stuff. The company charges around $15 per month for equipment rentals for DSL customers. The gear is nothing to write home about, but it works. You can also buy the modem outright from CenturyLink for up to $200—whether this is a good deal for you depends on how long you plan to have CenturyLink as a provider.

We don’t particularly recommend buying your own router. Both the DSL and fiber services require a modem certified by CenturyLink to function, so you may as well save some money and use the built-in wireless router.

Equipment and installation options can vary widely depending on

CenturyLink plans

available in your area.

View plans

Equipment and installation

3.0

Surprisingly great Wi-Fi equipment—watch out for that installation fee, though

Rise Broadband offers surprisingly competitive equipment. The provider offers the TP-Link Deco M4 mesh system, which can easily cover an entire large home. Customers can choose to rent up to three of the devices for $5 more per month each, so you can save a little money if you don’t need the full range of all three routers.

Rise Broadband’s installation fee is a whopping $150. That’s one of the highest of any providers we’ve seen. However, many promotions waive this fee. If you can’t find one in your area, it’s also worth asking the sales rep about it—you never know.

Equipment and installation options can vary widely depending on

Rise Broadband plans

available in your area.

View plans

Customer experience

3.0

The great unknown

If one area will make or break Brightspeed, it’s customer experience. The provider got its start by acquiring a large number of DSL markets from CenturyLink, so a lot of customers had their internet service transition from one provider to another. A sudden shift in customer experience here could have been really bad.

Opinions of the service are quite mixed so far. Some customers seem to be having a fine experience, with no noticeable change from how things were with CenturyLink. Others have had a rockier transition, with major complaints about speed and customer service.

These types of reports may give you pause, but since the provider is new and the transition from CenturyLink is still happening, things may improve.

Visit Brightspeed's website

or call 1-833-438-0878 for more information on contracts and money-back guarantees.

Go to provider

Customer experience

3.0

Below-average customer service

CenturyLink consistently scores slightly below average in customer satisfaction (2), largely due to complaints about a lack of responsiveness regarding customer service. The service also gets a lot of complaints from new fiber internet customers, but complaints are very common industry-wide.

CenturyLink hires techs and contractors from around the country, so some inconsistency is expected. It redeems itself slightly, though, with an easy-to-use support page.

The company is expanding and we hear that many new cities will have fiber internet hookups from CenturyLink within the next few years. If you can get only DSL, though, you may have a connection as slow as 3 Mbps or one as fast as 100 Mbps, with huge variation in latency depending on how far you are from the nearest access point.

We like that CenturyLink provides DSL to customers who may have no other option, but we don't recommend the DSL offering if you have access to cable or fiber internet from another provider.

Visit CenturyLink's website

or call 1-833-804-2792 for more information on contracts and money-back guarantees.

Go to provider

Customer experience

3.0

Drastically improved experience compared to satellite internet, but still suffers from some weather-related interference

The customer experience with Rise Broadband is good overall. It offers solid speeds at a great price—if you’re coming from satellite, it’ll be a whole new world. Our one major gripe isn’t so much with Rise as it is with fixed wireless in general: it’s more susceptible to weather interference than most other types of internet. If you’re in an area with frequent heavy rain or snow, you might have some reliability issues (although satellite would likely have the same issues, too).

Multiple customers have noted that speeds fluctuate throughout the year, possibly due to network congestion followed by maintenance and new infrastructure to accommodate the additional traffic. Unfortunately, your experience may be hindered by limited self-help troubleshooting options if you have any issues.

Visit Rise Broadband's website

or call 1-844-719-8068 for more information on contracts and money-back guarantees.

Go to provider

Made up your mind?

Find out what providers are available near you.

Brightspeed

0.0

(0)

5 Star

4 Star

3 Star

2 Star

1 Star

CenturyLink

3.9

(76)

5 Star

34%

4 Star

41%

3 Star

16%

2 Star

1 Star

Jessicafrom Greenbrier, AR

CenturyLink Customer for 1+ years

Reviewed on: 6-17-2022

It is reliable and always works for us when we Need to do multiple things at once. It is good service. With good workers.

Davidfrom Colorado Springs, CO

CenturyLink Customer for 1+ years

Reviewed on: 6-17-2022

Over all good service it does however bog down at some points

Johnfrom Minneapolis, MN

CenturyLink Customer for 8+ years

Reviewed on: 6-17-2022

It's too slow, I don't have the capability for fast internet,

Ronikkafrom Sidney, MT

CenturyLink Customer for 1+ years

Reviewed on: 6-17-2022

Setting up was a pain but once on the board great service and great rate.

Rise Broadband

4.0

(1)

5 Star

4 Star

100%

3 Star

2 Star

1 Star

Sandyfrom Nyc, Ny

Rise Broadband Customer for 1+ years

Reviewed on: 8-29-2022

It's ok the speed could be better

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Endnotes and sources

1. "Broadband Insights Report (OVBI)," OpenVault. Accessed August 17, 2022.2. "Internet Service Providers," ACSI. Accessed Dec. 10, 2022.

Endnotes and sources