What is the best internet provider in Los Angeles?
If you can get it, AT&T Fiber is the top internet provider in the Los Angeles: the birthplace of Hollywood and home of the Dodgers. With so much going for it, you’d expect better fiber availability, but it falls short. AT&T Fiber offers the fastest median download speeds, no contracts and included equipment. However, if you’re looking for something cheaper, check out Frontier Fiber’s $30 200Mbps plan. It offers symmetrical download and upload speeds.
Last but not least, if you’re on the hunt for the fastest speeds in Los Angeles, Sonic Telecom offers an incredible deal. With speeds of up to 10,000Mbps at just $50 a month, it’s an exceptional value — if it’s available in your area.
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Source: CNET analysis of provider data.
Other available internet providers in Los Angeles
Cox Communications: Although it’s one of the country’s biggest cable internet providers, Cox has a relatively small footprint in the Los Angeles metro area. It’s solely available in the Palos Verdes Peninsula. Plans start at $30 per month for 100Mbps download and go up to $150 per month for its 2-gigabit option.
Frontier Communications: Frontier has a notable presence in the Los Angeles market. Its DSL and fiber-optic service are scattered throughout the area, including some of Beverly Hills, Long Beach, the San Fernando Valley, Santa Monica and portions of western LA. Similar to our guidance on AT&T, if Frontier’s DSL service is the only option at your address, seek other alternatives. If Frontier Fiber is available — which has options for 200Mbps up to 7Gbps symmetrical speeds starting at $30 to $300 per month — you’d be hard-pressed to find a better option.
Sonic Telecom: This ISP is mainly known for offering service in the Bay Area. Angelenos can find Sonic service in a handful of neighborhoods, including Beverly Hills, Glendale, Inglewood, Pasadena and West Hollywood. Although Sonic is known for building 100% fiber networks, much of its offering in the LA market is older DSL, and most of its fiber service in the area currently utilizes AT&T’s fiber network.
T-Mobile Home Internet: T-Mobile’s fixed wireless home internet service uses its 5G and 4G LTE networks to get customers online at an average download speed between 87 and 415Mbps. It’s appealing for its simplicity: $50 a month covers all equipment, taxes, installation fees and services. Get faster speeds at $60 a month. For $70 a month, you can include a Mesh Access Point and a Wi-Fi Gateway for more reliable speeds throughout the house. There are no data caps and no contracts required. Although technically available throughout the Los Angeles metro area, you must plug in your address on the T-Mobile site to see if you’re serviceable.
Verizon 5G Home Internet: Like T-Mobile, this is a fixed wireless home internet option. Verizon’s average download speeds are around 250Mbps. It also features an all-in price that covers taxes, installation fees and equipment but splits the cost into two buckets: $50 a month for a two-year price-lock guarantee or $70 per month for a three-year price-lock and additional perks.
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Cheap internet options in Los Angeles
The average starting price for internet service in Los Angeles is approximately $45 monthly. If you’re looking for the most affordable internet plans in your area, multiple options are available that are cheaper than the average cost. The cheapest plan is Starry Connect, which costs $15 per month and offers speeds up to 30Mbps but will only be available to qualifying users.
What’s the cheapest internet plan in Los Angeles?
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Los Angeles internet providers, such as Spectrum and Cox, may offer lower introductory pricing or streaming add-ons for a limited time. Others, such as AT&T, Frontier and Verizon, run the same standard pricing year-round.
For a more extensive list of promos, check out our guide on the best internet deals.
How fast is Los Angeles broadband?
Los Angeles isn’t among the top 50 fastest cities in the US. A big reason is that 100% fiber connections are not yet as prevalent as cable and DSL connections in the city. Major efforts by AT&T (making its Fiber 2000 and Fiber 5000 plans more widely available) and Frontier (whose 2- and 5-gigabit plans are now available for all locations serviceable for its fiber offerings) should help boost those stats.
Fastest internet plans in Los Angeles
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Source: CNET analysis of provider data.
Internet providers in popular cities near Los Angeles
Most internet connection plans can now handle basic productivity and communication tasks. If you’re looking for an internet plan that can accommodate videoconferencing, streaming video or gaming, you’ll have a better experience with a more robust connection. Here’s an overview of the recommended minimum download speeds for various applications, according to the Federal Communication Commission. Note that these are only guidelines and that internet speed, service and performance vary by connection type, provider and address.
0 to 5Mbps allows you to tackle the basics: browsing the internet, sending and receiving email and streaming low-quality video.
5 to 40Mbps gives you higher-quality video streaming and videoconferencing.
40 to 100Mbps should give one user sufficient bandwidth to satisfy the demands of modern telecommuting, video streaming and online gaming.
100 to 500Mbps allows one to two users to simultaneously engage in high-bandwidth activities like videoconferencing, streaming and online gaming.
500 to 1,000Mbps allows three or more users to engage in high-bandwidth activities at the same time.
How CNET chose the best internet providers in Los Angeles
Internet service providers are numerous and regional. Unlike the latest smartphone, laptop, router or kitchen tool, it’s impractical to personally test every ISP in a given city. What’s our approach? We start by researching the pricing, availability and speed information, drawing on our own historical ISP data, the provider sites and mapping information from the Federal Communications Commission at FCC.gov.
It doesn’t end there: We go to the FCC’s website to check our data and ensure we consider every ISP that provides service in an area. We also input local addresses on provider websites to find specific options for residents. We look at sources, including the American Customer Satisfaction Index and J.D. Power, to evaluate how happy customers are with an ISP’s service. ISP plans and prices are subject to frequent changes. All information provided is accurate as of publication.
Once we have this localized information, we ask three main questions:
Does the provider offer access to reasonably fast internet speeds?
Do customers get decent value for what they’re paying?
Are customers happy with their service?
The answers to those questions are often layered and complex, but the providers that come closest to “yes” on all three are the ones we recommend. When selecting the cheapest internet service, we look for the plans with the lowest monthly fee, although we also factor in things like price increases, equipment fees and contracts. Choosing the fastest internet service is relatively straightforward. We look at advertised upload and download speeds and consider real-world speed data from sources like Ookla and FCC reports. (Disclosure: Ookla is owned by the same parent company as CNET, Ziff Davis.)
To explore our process in more depth, visit our how we test ISPs page.
What’s the final word on internet providers in Los Angeles?
Spectrum is tough to beat among Los Angeles internet providers if you want consistent service and wide availability. Sonic is the fastest ISP in the city, but AT&T and Frontier’s fiber plans are also tough to beat. Overall, change is coming over the next few years in the City of Angels as providers like AT&T and Frontier move away from their older DSL lines (still prominent in the area) toward their growing fiber networks. Cable internet still rules in LA, but fiber is the future.
Internet providers in Los Angeles FAQs
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