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

4.2

Customer rating

4.3

(203)

Plans starting at $49.99

Download speeds up to 940 Mbps

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Staff rating

4.0

Customer rating

3.9

(12)

Plans starting at $9.99

Download speeds up to 1200 Mbps

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See what providers service your area.

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

See full review

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

Check deals

Staff rating

4.2

Fast, affordable fiber internet with a big East Coast footprint

Verizon Fios offers fast, reliable fiber internet, along with one of the best overall customer experiences in the business. Verizon Fios is highly recommended, and it's one of the best home internet providers we reviewed.

What we like

Reliable, symmetrical speeds
No contracts

What we dislike

Limited availability
No plan above 1 gig

See full review

Savings tip: Verizon Fios 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

Wow! Internet earns its name with incredible value

Wow! Internet is known for reliability, fantastic customer service, and no- contract options. Wow! Internet offers inexpensive internet with great equipment and DIY and professional installation options. Plus, a Wi-Fi modem is included with every plan. Wow! Internet boasts 99.9% network reliability, and it's a solid choice for most households. In fact, Wow! Internet was named "Best Internet Service Provider" by US News and World Report in 2024. Wow! Internet offers both cable and fiber internet networks, depending on your location.

What we like

Affordable
Optional contracts
Award-winning customer service

What we dislike

Limited upload speed
Only available in 6 states

See full review

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

Check deals

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

3.5

More speed for your money

Verizon Fios is an excellent value overall. The provider offers three fiber-to-the-home plans, starting at about $50 per month for 300 Mbps, which is more for the money than you’ll get with many competitors.

Even though this is Verizon’s “slowest” offering, it’s still extremely fast and should cover a wide variety of households. In fact, we interviewed one customer who lives in a household of five internet users—two adults working full time from home, three children streaming videos and playing video games, and a plethora of internet-enabled smart home devices. She feels like they pay a good price for the 300 Mbps plan without losing out on speed. "I rarely have to think about it," she said. "If I don't have to think about it, then it's working."

The mid-tier plan is also a solid value. The highest-tier gigabit option is less competitively priced, at closer to $90 per month. However, that's still about 25% lower than the national benchmark for similar plans. (1) And you do get the benefit of symmetrical download and upload speeds with all of Verizon’s fiber internet plans, which you won’t find with every provider. This helps offset the cost somewhat. For an additional $10 each month at the highest tier, you get 2 TB of cloud storage, a subscription to Disney+, and a MoCA adapter for internet gaming.

It's worth noting that Verizon also offers DSL internet in some areas, with download speeds as high as 15 Mbps and bundled prices in the range of $75 per month, but is phasing it out in 2023. That's awfully slow compared to fiber internet, and quite expensive, but it's better than nothing. The good news is Verizon is rapidly building out its fiber-to-the-home network, so many households that have been stuck with DSL may soon be eligible for Fios.

Pricing details vary by location. Visit

Verizon Fios's website

or call 1-833-970-0848 to speak with a rep.

See pricing

Value

4.0

Great value, whether you sign a contract or not

WOW! offers 100 Mbps to 5 Gbps plans at a great price, whether or not you sign up for an optional contract. If you don’t mind signing a contract, WOW!’s plans will cost you about 25% less than the national benchmark for a similar plan (1). After the contract period, prices transition to month-to-month rates, which are $10 to $15 higher but still a really great deal.

To get WOW!’s lowest advertised prices, you need to sign up for both autopay and paperless billing (a $5 monthly savings) and commit to a two-year contract. If you’re not sure whether you want WOW! Internet for that long, you can sign up for month-to-month. If you terminate your contract early, you’ll pay $15 for each month left on your contract—which isn’t much more than you’d pay if you skip the contract from the start. (2)

There are data caps of either 1.5 TB or 3 TB, depending on your plan. These are pretty high, but if you’re a a really heavy downloader or uploader, you could be charged up to $50 extra every month and have your speed throttled.

Pricing details vary by location. Visit

WOW!'s website

or call 1-844-898-8626 to speak with a rep.

See pricing

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

5.0

Blazing-fast speeds with rock-solid performance

Performance is where Verizon Fios really shines. PCMag named it the fastest Major Internet Service Provider in 2022—and the 9 years before that. (2) The fiber-optic connections are rock solid, and the speeds offered are excellent.

Additionally, all plans have symmetrical download and upload speeds, which is ideal for anyone who uploads a lot of content. Some competitors have started offering 2,000 Mbps (or faster), but the vast majority of households won’t need those multi-gig speeds, so Verizon customers aren’t really missing out.

The likelihood of maintaining those fast advertised speeds reliably is also better with a fiber provider like Verizon than it is with some other internet types, but your experience may vary by location. In an interview, a Fios customer of over three years said that she sticks with Verizon because of the reliability even more than the price. At her current home in Buffalo, NY, she didn’t have any service outages or slowdowns even through the massive blizzards in 2022. When she previously used Verizon Fios in the Bronx, NY, the infrastructure had more outages and maintenance, though it was still faster and more reliable than another provider she tried in the area.

If you can get only DSL with Verizon, you'll only be able to download at speeds up to 15 Mbps and will pay a lot for the privilege. If you have any other option, we'd usually recommend it.

Available speeds vary by location. Call 1-833-970-0848 to speak with a Verizon Fios rep or

go to its website.

Performance

4.0

Fast, reliable cable and fiber internet

The majority of WOW!’s network is cable and fiber, but some customers in Alabama still have legacy DSL service. WOW!'s speeds top out at 5 gigs, but for most households, that's way more than needed. We generally don't recommend more than 1 gigs for most households.

WOW's cable plans have upload speeds that cap out at 50 Mbps, but its fiber plans are symmetrical. That means you can upload as fast as you can download. Most people will be fine with 50 Mbps upload speeds, but if you upload a lot of photos or videos, WOW! fiber could save you some headaches.

Available speeds vary by location. Call 1-844-898-8626 to speak with a WOW! rep or

go to its website.

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

4.0

Equipment included on all plans and free pro installation if you order online

Verizon Fios offers a pretty standard equipment setup for fiber: an optical network terminal (ONT) and a wireless router. Routers are included at no extra cost on each plan, and the fastest plan comes with an included mesh network called Whole-Home Wi-Fi.

Installation costs $99, and there’s no self-install option. A current Verizon Fios customer who moved from one city to another said that they didn’t have to pay for pro install because they use their own equipment and their new home was previously wired for Fios, so it’s worth checking whether you need installation at your address. If you do need installation and order online, Verizon will waive the fee. This can be an easy way to save some money on your first internet bill. That said, while the fee is expensive, it’s not unheard of among internet service providers.

Equipment and installation options can vary widely depending on

Verizon Fios plans

available in your area.

View plans

Equipment and installation

3.5

Competitive Wi-Fi gear and installation

WOW! includes a free modem for your first year ($14/month after that), and fiber plans come with a free Wi-Fi router too. If you have cable service, you can rent a Whole Home Wi-Fi system, which includes a coveted eero base and one extender for $9.99. Additional extenders are $5.99 each, but most households won’t need more than one because eero’s that good. eero comes with an app you can use to manage your network, and you can add security services for an additional cost (under $10/month) if you want ad-blocking, malware protection, or parental controls.

A free self-startup kit is available to most new customers, but if you prefer professional installation, it's $75. The good news is that with professional installation, WOW! waives its $10 activation fee, so it’s really just $65 more to have a technician’s help.

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Equipment and installation options can vary widely depending on

WOW! plans

available in your area.

View plans

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

4.5

The leader in customer service among internet providers

If there’s a leader in internet customer experience, it’s probably Verizon Fios. The service is absolutely rock solid, with hardly a hiccup. This, combined with the excellent speeds, makes for a seamless internet experience—it just works.

Verizon also consistently scores well in customer satisfaction. In fact, it took the top spot this year in the ACSI benchmarks (3), tied with AT&T. Meanwhile, PCMag's readers rank Verizon Fios third in overall satisfaction (4).

Connecting away from home is the only place Verizon falls short. With services such as AT&T and Xfinity, subscribers get access to a nationwide network of free hotspots. Verizon doesn't have this offering (but also doesn't trick you into using your home router to let strangers connect).

Visit Verizon Fios's website

or call 1-833-970-0848 for more information on contracts and money-back guarantees.

Go to provider

Customer experience

4.5

Award-winning customer service

WOW! provides an award-winning customer experience, ranking fourth-highest in J.D. Power’s ISP Satisfaction list in the North Central US region in 2022. (3)

We should note that in 2021 WOW! sold a couple regions of its business (Evansville, IN and Chicago) to Astound broadband, so customers may see some changes in their service. That said, Astound ranks fifth on P.C. Mag's Readers' Choice awards, so you're probably in good hands. (4)

The main downside is that Wow! Internet is only available in six states in the US. The company is currently expanding, though, so check to see if service is available in your area.

Visit WOW!'s website

or call 1-844-898-8626 for more information on contracts and money-back guarantees.

Go to provider

Made up your mind?

Find out what providers are available near you.

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.

Verizon Fios

4.3

(203)

5 Star

48%

4 Star

37%

3 Star

13%

2 Star

1 Star

Jamiefrom Fredericksburg, VA

Verizon Fios Customer for 1+ years

Reviewed on: 6-17-2022

It's fast internet that we don't usually have a problem with. I do wish they had more packages for combining services, though.

Mollyfrom Orlando, FL

Verizon Fios Customer for Less than a year

Reviewed on: 6-17-2022

They seem to be awesome so far. Much cheaper than my cable service.

Jasonfrom Corona, CA

Verizon Fios Customer for 1+ years

Reviewed on: 6-17-2022

Verizon FiOS has good network reliability. Their internet service is great. They can improve on lowering my bill.

Lesliefrom Pottstown, PA

Verizon Fios Customer for 8+ years

Reviewed on: 6-17-2022

They are immensely reliable in the entire time I have had only 2 Fios outages. They don't raise rates, they don't harass me. Nothing they do everything perfectly

WOW!

3.9

(12)

5 Star

33%

4 Star

33%

3 Star

25%

2 Star

1 Star

Annfrom Sterling Heights , MI

WOW! Customer for 4+ years

Reviewed on: 6-22-2022

Nothing is good. The internet is too slow. It sucks.

Rickfrom Canton, MI

WOW! Customer for 8+ years

Reviewed on: 6-22-2022

WOW started off fine for years. In recent years there service has gone down hill. There are more interuptions and slower speeds.

Mercedesfrom Knoxville, TN

WOW! Customer for 4+ years

Reviewed on: 6-22-2022

I think that wow is a great internet service company, they get the job done and are always there when you need them. I think that they could improve by offering more services to the public

Angelfrom Leslie, MI

WOW! Customer for 4+ years

Reviewed on: 6-17-2022

I THINK IT IS TOO EXPENSIVE FOR BASIC PHONE AND INTERNET

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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

1.“2022 Urban Rate Survey – Fixed Broadband Service,” FCC. Accessed 19 October 2022.2. "The Fastest ISPs of 2022," PC Mag. Accessed 19 October 2022.3. "Internet Providers," American Customer Satisfaction Index. Accessed 19 October 2022.4. “Readers’ Choice 2022: Your Favorite ISPs for Any Type of Broadband,” PCMag. Accessed 19 October 2022.

Endnotes and sources

1. “2022 Urban Rate Survey – Fixed Broadband Service,” FCC. Accessed 21 June 2022.2. "WOW! Internet - Terms of Service," Wide Open West. Accessed 12 October 20223. "Price of Residential Internet Drives Customer Choice, J.D. Power Finds," J. D. Power. Accessed 7 December 2022.4. “Readers’ Choice 2022: Your Favorite ISPs for Any Type of Broadband,” PCMag. Accessed 7 December 2022.