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Internet by City

Fiber vs cable internet

Fiber reaches more than half of homes in 123 of the 200 cities we cover. Cable is available in 200 of them. Here is how the two differ and how to tell which ones reach you.

How each one reaches your home

Fiber internet carries data as light through glass strands, ideally all the way into the building. Cable internet runs over the coaxial network first built for cable television, with fiber in the parts of the network farther from your home.

Both networks share capacity among nearby homes somewhere along the line, so what you notice day to day depends on how much capacity the provider has built and how it manages busy hours. That is not something the FCC data measures, so we do not rank providers on it.

Upload speeds in the data

Download speeds on both technologies can be high. Upload is where the listings differ more. Across the provider listings in our cities, 91.6% of fiber listings advertise an upload speed equal to their download speed (601 of 656). For cable the figure is 56.3% (147 of 261).

Upload matters if you send large files, back up photos to the cloud, stream video of yourself, or have several people on video calls at once. If your household mostly downloads and streams, the gap matters less.

Where fiber reaches, city by city

In the median city we cover, 56.3% of homes can get fiber from at least one provider, and 93.9% can get cable. The highest fiber shares in our data:

And the lowest:

Gigabit service, meaning at least a gigabit down and a tenth of that up, reaches 81.7% of homes in the median city, from fiber or cable.

How to choose between them

  • Start with what reaches your address. A city share tells you the odds, not your answer, so check your address on the FCC map.
  • If both reach you and upload matters to your household, compare the advertised upload speeds, not only download.
  • Read the plan terms for contract length, equipment fees and any monthly data limit. These vary by plan and change often, so we do not list them.
  • Look up your city page for the providers, technologies and top advertised speeds reported there.

Questions

Is fiber available in most large US cities?

Fiber reaches more than half of homes in 123 of the 200 cities we cover (61.5% of them). In the median city, 56.3% of homes can get it.

Do fiber plans have faster upload speeds than cable plans?

In the FCC data for our cities, 91.6% of fiber listings advertise upload equal to download, compared with 56.3% of cable listings.

How do I know whether fiber reaches my address?

Search your address on the FCC National Broadband Map. Our address check page opens it for you.

Source: FCC National Broadband Map, Broadband Data Collection, availability as of December 31, 2025 (published September 29, 2026). Providers report where they offer service; a listed provider may not serve every address. Advertised speeds are not measured speeds. Check a specific address on the address check page. How we build these pages.