Ookla issued one of its periodic reports that looks at broadband speed statistics across the country and ranks the states in terms of overall broadband speeds. The report uses speed test data at the end of the second quarter of 2026.
https://www.ookla.com/research/reports/50-us-state-broadband-speed-report-1h-2026-access-form
As usual, this kind of report has to be taken with a grain of salt since it averages all broadband speed tests from all ISPs and all technologies, so there are a ton of factors that influence a state’s broadband speed. Issues like the mix of people electing slow versus fast packages, the mix of technologies and ISPs, and the degree of competition all impact a given state’s average speed.
In general, speed tests also tend to understate ISP performance. Speed tests not only include customers with good broadband speeds that performs as intended, but speed tests capture the slower speeds due to WiFi issues within customer homes. I’ve always wondered if people having broadband problems take more speed tests than those who have good performance. The good news is that these kinds of issues affect customers everywhere, and so probably average out when comparing states.
The good news across the country is that broadband speeds are improving. When Ookla first published this report for June 2024, there were only ten states with at least 60% of speed tests above the FCC’s definition of broadband speed of 100/20 Mbps. In this latest measurement in 2026, only four states failed to meet that threshold – Alaska, Wyoming, Wisconsin, and Montana. Thirteen states now have at least 70% of speed tests beating the FCC definition of broadband. That’s pretty significant improvement in just two years.
It’s not surprising that the top-performing states in the past, like Connecticut and New Jersey, didn’t see much improvement in broadband speeds – mostly because the states have had a high percentage of homes with the option to buy gigabit broadband. The state with the biggest improvement from 2025 to 2026 was Maine, which grew to 63% of households achieving 100/20 speeds or faster in 2026 compared to 57.6% in 2025.
Ookla just started to track Starlink speeds in 2025 but is already seeing some big improvements in speeds. One of the interesting statistics in the reports is Starlink speeds by state. There are several factors that influence Starlink speeds the most. One is tree cover, and sure enough, states like West Virginia, Tennessee, and Arkansas are near the bottom of the list of state speeds, while plains states are near the top. But the other issue is that Starlink doesn’t have the same coverage everywhere. It’s not talked about a lot, but there are different numbers of satellites in different orbit paths. I assume Starlink puts more satellites in orbits that cross the most potential customers – and we can’t forget that the company makes that decision on the worldwide market, not just the U.S. There may be other issues affecting Starlink speeds – perhaps areas with greater numbers of customers have slower speeds.
Overall, Starlink speeds are improving. In June 2025, no state had 50% of Starlink customers meeting the FCC 200/20 Mbps definition of broadband. In the 2026 report, seventeen states now exceed 50% of speed tests faster than 100/20 Mbps. The state with the biggest improvement was South Dakota, which now has 58.2% of customers exceeding 100/20 Mbps, compared to 37.1% a year earlier. Ookla notes that the size of the sample in South Dakota is so small that both numbers might not be reliable.
Finally, Ookla looked at rural broadband performance. Only three states didn’t see an improvement in rural speeds between 2025 and 2026. One can presume that much of this is due to the broadband networks that were being built as a result of ARPA and CPF broadband grants. Maine, Wyoming, Vermont, and Wisconsin saw the biggest improvements in rural speeds.