Once again, Consumer Reports finds that the top Internet service providers are independently-owned, locally-owned, or publicly-owned ISPs.
The magazine’s 2026 survey of its 105,000 members found that “a handful of [I]nternet service providers (ISPs) received stellar ratings and earned CR’s Recommended badge. But that was the exception, especially when it comes to value.”
Of the 68 companies ranked, most "received middling or worse marks" with the "low scorers includ(ing) some of the country’s biggest ISPs, such as Cox, Optimum (Altice), Spectrum (Charter), and Xfinity (Comcast).”
Among the top 10 rated ISPs were Firefly Fiber Broadband, a subsidiary of the Central Virginia Electric Cooperative offering fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) service to roughly 48,000 rural households in its region.
Also named was perennial favorite, EPB Fiber in Chattanooga, the largest municipal broadband system in the nation; as well as Socket Fiber, a locally owned Missouri-based telecommunications company.
The other seven top providers were:
- IQ Fiber, whose coverage area includes multiple counties across Florida and Maryland, and the cities of Charleston, South Carolina, Dover, Delaware, and Savannah, Georgia.
- Wyyerd Fiber, which serves parts of Arizona and California.
- Empire Access, headquartered in Prattsburgh, New York.
- USI Fiber, a Minnesota-based ISP bought by T-Mobile in 2025.
- Greenlight Networks, offering service in Western New York, the Capital Region, the Hudson Valley, and parts of Pennsylvania and Baltimore.
- Ezee Fiber, operating in the northern Houston metro area, and in parts of New Mexico, Washington, Illinois, Oregon and Michigan.
- Surf Internet, with subscribers across parts of Illinois, Indiana and Michigan.
The Value Gap
In a market where monopoly ISPs consistently rank at or near the top of the most hated companies in America, Consumer Reports notes how in this year’s survey “more than a dozen ISPs earned stellar scores from CR members, proving that it really is possible to like your internet provider. At the other end of the spectrum, six ISPs earned truly poor scores, getting knocked on everything we asked about, from customer service to overall value.”
“In general, CR members are not enthusiastic about their [I]nternet providers. Only 16 percent gave top grades to their ISPs, and nearly all of those were small regional companies. When we drilled down, asking about everything from technical support to value for the money, we got mainly lukewarm responses — especially from customers of the biggest ISPs. Notably, only 13 percent of those surveyed felt they received top-notch value from their ISP.”
Fiber Keeps Winning Fans
- Aside from surveying members' overall satisfaction with their provider, Consumer Reports also surfaced a number of other interesting insights. The survey found:
- Median broadband speeds reported by CR members increased from 364 Megabits per second in our 2025 survey to 400 Mbps this year.
- Almost a quarter of respondents said their ISP subscription was for gig-speed service.
- About half of CR members get their Internet service from a cable company, while nearly one-third have a fiber connection, which is up slightly from 28 percent last year; while only 13 percent rely on 5G home Internet service.
- Only a small percent of CR members subscribe to satellite Internet, but those who do give it “high overall satisfaction marks — nearly matching fiber.”
Still, the magazine says, while fiber isn’t the most common Internet access technology its members have, fiber subscribers are “the happiest customers.”
“In our survey, nearly 70 percent of respondents with fiber service said they were very or completely satisfied. In fact, the majority of ISPs that earned the highest Overall Satisfaction Scores in our ratings offer fiber service.”
Header image courtesy of Alpha Stock Images - http://alphastockimages.com/, CC BY-SA 4.0, Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International