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A new report by connectivity analysis group Opensignal has given consumers a peek inside an opaque broadband market. The "USA Fixed Broadband Experience Report," which Opensignal released in May 2026, definitively ranks the five leading broadband providers by key metrics like download speeds and video quality. To some consumers, the results may be surprising. While Xfinity led the pack in key metrics like download speed and video streaming, Spectrum won the gold medal for reliability. 

Pitting the United States' leading broadband providers against each other is no easy task. The first of a two-part series, the report gauged several key consumer experience metrics of Spectrum, Xfinity, Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile. The focus on these five major brands is no accident, as the report focuses on the internet service providers (ISPs) that have a definitive lead over the competition in terms of service areas. As Opensignal attests in its report, consolidation has been the name-of-the-game in the broadband space. Charter-Spectrum's $34.5 billion merger with Cox is the quintessential example of this trend. Approved by the FCC in March 2026, the communications conglomerate will now reach over 38 million customers in 41 states. Reports like Opensignal give consumers a better understanding of the quickly consolidating broadband landscape's relative performance.

Opensignal also noted that, due to massive network investments by leading providers, America's broadband providers  showed major year-over-year improvements. For instance, Opensignal found that both Xfinity and Spectrum saw significant leaps in upload speeds, while AT&T's expanded fiber network increased its performance wholesale. Even T-Mobile, which finished last across the board, saw its reliability score significantly improve. Whether Starlink, which many already prefer traditional ISPs, can garner enough users to make it into next year's rankings, is another major trend to watch.

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Determining the best internet service provider largely depends on what you value. Opensignal's report makes it easy by ranking five largest broadband giants pitted head to head in five key metrics: download speed, upload speed, consistent quality, video experience, and reliability. To eliminate any biases in their data, the group focused on shared geographic areas of coverage. For instance, in judging AT&T's performance, testers compared the head-to-head metrics against its four competitors in regions where both internet service providers retain a presence.

The results of the report give a fascinating look into the country's broadband networks. In terms of reliability, which Opensignal defines as "the ability of a household to connect to the internet and to successfully complete 'uninterrupted' tasks across multiple devices, encompassing work and recreational activities," Spectrum stole the show. The test's second-best scorer was Xfinity, rounding out a top two that scored demonstrably above the competition. The bottom three scores, in order, were Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile. According to Opensignal, its reliability metrics give a more robust understanding of overall performance, as it "includes assessments of initial connectivity and continuous completion of tasks, making it more comprehensive in scenarios involving multiple simultaneous connections."

Another major measure of overall performance performed by the group is "consistent quality," a number that measures the percentage of connections that meets thresholds for key metrics like time to first byte, download and upload speeds, packet loss, latency, and jitter. Critically, the measure gives consumers the percentage of times that ISPs met these thresholds for individual users. ISPs were much more uniform in their consistent quality scores. Xfinity, the metric's leader, scored only 0.4% higher than its runner-up, Verizon. Spectrum also scored fairly high, while T-Mobile's 5th place finish scored less than 5% lower than Xfinity.

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Although customers can take several steps to speed up their Wi-Fi, sometimes the best move is to choose the speediest ISP possible. Download speeds, measured in Mbps, track the speed with which information from the internet reaches a user's browser. Once again, Xfinity was a clear leader in this metric, garnering 228.6 Mbps. Spectrum and AT&T, meanwhile, came second and third, each registering over 200 Mbps. Verizon and T-Mobile, unfortunately, fell behind their speedy counterparts. T-Mobile, which brings up the rear, was 80.1 Mbps slower than the leading ISP provider.

Meanwhile, AT&T's upload speeds lapped the competition with a whopping 120.0 Mbps, more than double the combined speeds of its second and third place finishers, Verizon and Xfinity. Spectrum and T-Mobile, meanwhile, amounted to only 26.8 and 26.4 Mbps, respectively.

Video streaming saw all five ISPs score relatively the same. Opensignal determined a user's video streaming experience through a Mean Opinion Score which looks to translate the experience of users at various resolutions to a 0-100 point scale. Key metrics included "the time to start playing the video, the quality of the video, the time playing each resolution, and the time spent re-buffering." Although Xfinity bested the competition with a 77.9, the gap between first and last place was only 1.6. For instance, Spectrum, the second-highest scorer, notched a score just 0.1 lower than Xfinity.

Part 2 of Opensignal's report focuses on the experiences of users in the United States' 50 largest Metropolitan Statistical Areas. In it, the group discusses many of the advancements America's fixed broadband networks have made in the past year. Covering developments in AT&T and Verizon's fiber networks, regional provider performance, and that of nationwide cable networks, the report is a valuable look at the country's internet landscape.