Test your internet speed from anywhere in the US right now. The test uses Cloudflare's edge network. The server name in your result shows where the measurement ran.
FastSpeedTest is independent: we are not affiliated with, sponsored by or endorsed by any US provider, and these pages carry no affiliate or referral links. Plans, prices and availability are set per service address, so confirm anything you plan to buy on the provider's own site and against its FCC Broadband Consumer Label.
Once you have those numbers, the provider guides below explain what to expect from that specific technology, and the bandwidth calculator shows whether your result is actually enough for your household.
If your wired test falls well below these numbers, the issue is almost certainly inside your home. Think router, WiFi, modem, or old wiring, not your ISP's network.
The number-one cause of slow internet in American homes is peak-hour cable congestion . Coaxial cable is shared among all subscribers on a node, so if your wired download drops 40% or more between noon and 9 PM, your node is overcrowded. Another common culprit is old in-wall coaxial wiring. A 25-year-old splitter can cap a gigabit plan at 200 Mbps. Read our fix slow internet guide .
Median fixed download is highest in Delaware, Rhode Island, New Jersey, Maryland and Washington, where dense cable and fiber overlap. It is lowest in Montana, Wyoming, Alaska, West Virginia and Mississippi, where DSL and fixed wireless still cover large areas. Two homes in the same ZIP code can differ by 10x depending on whether fiber has reached the street, so your own test result matters more than any state average.
Since 2024 the FCC defines fixed broadband as 100 Mbps download and 20 Mbps upload , with a longer-term target of 1 Gbps / 500 Mbps. If your wired test comes in under 100/20 on a plan sold as broadband, that is worth raising with your provider. Providers must also publish a Broadband Consumer Label showing typical speed, latency and total monthly price, which is the number to compare against your result here.
For one person, 100 Mbps down and 20 Mbps up is plenty. A household of four with 4K streaming and gaming will want 500 Mbps down and 50 Mbps up to keep everyone happy. See speed for a family of four .
Cable is shared. When your whole neighborhood streams at 8 PM, the local node fills up. Fiber doesn't have this issue because every home gets its own dedicated line. Our peak-hours guide shows how to prove it.
Cable was designed for downstream traffic and splits the spectrum heavily in that direction. That is normal on cable and only becomes a problem for video calls, streaming to Twitch and large cloud backups. See why upload speed is slow .
For streaming, browsing and video calls, yes, when your signal is strong. For competitive gaming or big daily uploads, fiber or cable is still the safer choice because 5G latency swings with tower congestion.