Have you ever wanted to throw your controller at the screen because your game lags and stutters due to a poor internet connection? You’re not alone. A survey from Liquid Web finds that 95% of gamers have experienced such latency issues, and 78% “rage quit” their playtime because of them. The anger and frustration stays with 16% of them even after they walked away from the game.
Don’t be a rage quitter. You can achieve a rock-solid broadband connection with low latency and jitter by upgrading your home networking equipment, switching to Ethernet instead of Wi-Fi, and, of course, picking an ISP that delivers a high-quality connection. Fiber broadband now has 60% household coverage in the US and “significant untapped potential for growth,” according to research from the Fiber Broadband Association.
Fiber optics to the home is likely to help with latency, but it isn’t a guarantee that the packets will stream steadily. A gamer’s best bet is to find an ISP with consistently low latency. That’s the reason for this annual feature.
To help determine the best ISP where you live, we gather the data from hundreds of thousands of PCMag Speed Tests performed in the US. We begin with an examination of an ISP’s median jitter and latency scores and combine them into a quality index; we factor in the speed based on upload/download medians; we utilize price and coverage numbers from our data partner BroadbandNow; then top it all off with ratings by you, our audience, sourced from our annual Readers’ Choice ISPs survey.
The result is our Cumulative Gaming ISP Index, designed to make fair, apples-to-apples comparisons between ISPs. It helps us pinpoint the top gaming providers both nationwide and across the US.
(For a more thorough explanation, including changes since last year’s story, read our complete methodology.)
This is our definitive guide to broadband providers that deliver exactly what you need for gaming. It factors in throughput (speed) but isn’t a slave to it. Quality gets its due. In fact, that last factor is so important that this year we’re adding the Highest Quality ISP award for each region of the country and the nation as a whole, regardless of speed, coverage, or price.
Want to become part of the story? Take the PCMag Speed Test to contribute data for your ISP. If you live north of the border, be sure to check out our ranking of The Best Gaming ISPs for 2026: Canada.
The Best Major Gaming ISPs for 2026
For our purposes, a “major” ISP is one with a large customer base (over one million) that spans multiple states (at least four), and, most germane to this story, has garnered a minimum of one thousand tests in the last year.
For many years—from the start of our reporting on Best Gaming ISPs in 2015 through 2024, when we completely overhauled our methodology—Verizon Fios was typically the top ISP for quality and speed. But last year, GFiber (formerly Google Fiber) took the crown. This year, GFiber proves it has staying power. It is once again the Best Gaming ISP, thanks to its excellent cumulative score, largely due to high numbers for gaming quality, pricing, and reader satisfaction. That last score is particularly noteworthy: a fantastic 9.5 out of 10.
“GFiber is mostly building and operating modern fiber networks with cleaner routing, fewer ‘mystery hops,’ and less congestion drama than legacy cable footprints,” says Tyler Cooper, the editor-in-chief of BroadbandNow. “It helps that they haven’t focused as much on rapid expansion in the past few years. When you control the last mile and you play an active role in engineering the backbone, you have a major advantage by taking this measured approach.”
GFiber isn’t the fastest ISP in the list—that designation goes to Ezee Fiber this time around. Ezee, with customers in Texas, New Mexico, Illinois, and Washington State, posts a speed index more than double that of the next best (MetroNet).
Meanwhile, two ISPs, GFiber and MetroNet, both receive the same test scores for median latency (5 milliseconds) and jitter (1 millisecond), earning an index of 20 out of 20 on our quality scale. We break the tie between them by looking at the speed index. That means MetroNet—a previous winner for Fastest ISP—earns the title of Best Quality ISP nationwide. (Ezee, the fastest of the lot, has a bit more latency than the others, as does Fios. Throughput and quality don’t always match up.)
There are some other scores we should note here. Frontier has the best rating for price by just a hair over GFiber, MetroNet, and Ezee (in that order). Frontier went bankrupt in 2020, but came back by focusing on fiber. Early next year, Verizon will acquire the company for approximately $20 billion. Best coverage in the nation goes, unsurprisingly, to Starlink, thanks to its low-Earth-orbit satellites that enable it to reach just about any location.
The Best Overall Gaming ISPs for 2026
To be included in this list, ISPs must have 100 PCMag Speed Test results from the last year. That opens up the arena to smaller broadband providers that may only have customers in one municipality or even one neighborhood.
Last year, GFiber triumphed over all others at this level, but going into 2026, a couple of well-loved smaller ISPs with excellent gaming quality ratings are at the top. This is partly because both of these smaller municipal providers—Pulse in Loveland, Colo., and NextLight in nearby Longmont—also earned excellent satisfaction ratings in our Readers’ Choice survey. Of the two, Pulse is ahead by just a bit, officially earning our Best Gaming ISP Overall designation for the year.
Smaller providers like Pulse “tend to have a ‘small town’ approach to their service, and they’re more likely to do the unsexy work, like peering, capacity planning, proactive maintenance,” BroadbandNow’s Cooper says. “These are things that incumbents often delay until customers are furious.”
Pulse had the only top gaming quality index of 20 in 2025. This time around, it again scores a 20 —but so do five other ISPs: Allo Fiber, GoNetSpeed, Rivr Tech, Sonic, and WTC. All earn exceptional low median latency (3) and jitter (1) scores. To break the tie, we again turn to the speed index, which reveals a new fastest ISP: GoNetSpeed, based in Rochester, NY, and offering service in several states, from Maine to Alabama. Its speed index this year put even Sonic—our longtime Fastest ISP winner—to shame.
Of the 80 ISPs on our overall ISPs list this year, 18 have a gaming quality index score of 19.2 or higher. Any of them ought to make a gamer happy, but those six ISPs with a rating of 20 will make gamers ecstatic.
The downside: Most of those providers are incredibly small, and some barely register for a coverage rating in our data from BroadbandNow (which is pulled from information the ISPs provide the FCC). Pulse, our big winner, for example, has a national coverage rating of about 0.03%.
The top ranking for coverage goes, unsurprisingly, to Starlink, which also did well with readers in our satisfaction survey. It’s not the only satellite provider in the list of gaming ISPs, but the others (HughesNet and Viasat) have such low latency scores that a gamer using them would be better off sticking to single-player titles. (HughesNet, by the way, looks like it’s going out of business.) The best price nationally, based on the cost of the highest tier of service, is offered by California-based Sonic.
The Best ISPs for Gaming by US Region
We break out scores for gaming ISPs in the US using the regions and divisions created by the US Census Bureau. There are four regions (Northeast, Midwest, South, and West), each with two or three divisions, as shown in the map below. Pass your cursor (or finger if you’re mobile) over any state in the union to see which ISP is the best for gaming in that region. Click on 2025 to see the differences since last year’s report. If a state is missing, it’s because we don’t have enough data for it individually (we’re looking at you, Alaska).
Our conversion of scores to a 1-to-10 scale (or 1-to-20 for quality) is based solely on the competition within that chart. The numbers you see in one chart are not comparable to those you see in others in this story.
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Northeast States
Despite coming in second overall nationally, Verizon Fios is the Best Gaming ISP in New England for the third consecutive year. It’s bolstered by an excellent 8.4 out of 10 satisfaction score, sourced from our Readers’ Choice survey, as well as great numbers for gaming quality and speed.
However, Fios is no longer the fastest ISP in New England; that distinction now belongs to Spectrum. Fios is not the provider with the best gaming quality index, either. For the first time in a while, the cable provider Cox achieves the least amount of lag, earning it the Highest Quality Gaming ISP award.
Another repeat winner, Optimum—specifically its fiber service—takes the Best Gaming ISP title for the mid-Atlantic states. It has the top score for speed, though it trails competitors in terms of coverage and reader satisfaction.
For the highest gaming quality, a new player emerges. Central New York’s Haefele Connect has the best quality index rating across the division, earning a perfect 20. Its coverage rating is minuscule, but if you’re in the Finger Lakes area, you’re in luck. Also, kudos to Rochester, NY-based Greenlight Networks for the best pricing in the division.
Midwest States
Last year, MetroNet managed to win this division thanks to its top scores in both quality and speed. This year, Spectrum takes over, despite possessing neither. What it does have is great pricing and a reader satisfaction score that propels it into the winners’ circle.
MetroNet is the fastest ISP in the region. Meanwhile, the Highest Quality Gaming ISP award goes to Ohio’s Altafiber, formerly known as Cincinnati Bell, which also operates in Kentucky and Indiana. It’s one of the ISPs that proves that speed isn’t always proportional to quality (it’s 12th on the list for speed). Best pricing in the division goes to FairlawnGig, the gigabit municipal co-operative provider for the town of Fairlawn, Ohio.
Recommended by Our Editors
Move west, and GFiber reasserts itself as the dominant ISP for gaming. Its final cumulative score is a full eight points ahead of the next ISP, thanks to the sky-high satisfaction score it earned in our Readers’ Choice survey. It also scores well for quality and speed, and has the absolute best rating for price.
That said, GFiber is not the ISP with the best quality in this division. Allo Fiber and WTC Fiber receive the same Gaming Quality Index score of 20. Ultimately, Allo takes our Highest Quality Gaming ISP award because it’s also the fastest ISP in the area, offering about three times the speed of WTC.
Note that in this area, none of the top ISPs have a coverage score above 2.2 out of 10. Spectrum is in the lead, covering approximately 20% of households.
Southern States
From Florida up to Delaware, the best ISP for gaming is GFiber, which offers the perfect blend of quality, price, and satisfaction. It’s only lacking in coverage, the smallest in the top 10 shown above.
The fastest ISP is Hotwire Fision, while the winner of the Highest Quality Gaming ISP in the region is Rivr Tech, a small rural ISP operated by a cooperative utility provider in North Carolina. Rivr Tech ranks 21st in the list for the South Atlantic states, as we lack data on its pricing or coverage; however, it clearly can’t be beat for gaming if you live in Robeson County, NC.
In the East South Central region, Comcast’s Xfinity narrowly outranks its chief rival, Spectrum, thanks to a better gaming quality index. Spectrum was in the winner’s slot here last year, with GFiber in second place. However, this time around, GFiber didn’t receive enough tests to merit inclusion.
For those seeking the absolute best connection in the region, regardless of the price or limited coverage, look to C Spire, a privately held telecom in Mississippi that extends into other states. (It doubles as a mobile provider that actually owns its own tower infrastructure.) In our tests of internet speed, C Spire is not only the fastest in the area, but also the one with the highest-quality connections, trouncing larger names like Spectrum and Xfinity.
Meanwhile, GFiber is the best ISP for gaming in this region hands down, leading thanks to a perfect mix of gaming speed, great pricing, and the highest reader satisfaction scores. On the other hand, it is in the middle of the pack in terms of speed and has very low coverage—it’s only available in two cities in Texas (Austin and San Antonio).
The fastest ISP here is our national speed demon, Ezee Fiber. However, the Highest Quality Gaming ISP award goes to a name that may not be familiar to many: Fidium, formerly Consolidated Communications. This fiber-to-the-home provider has service stretching from California to Maine, but in this division, it mainly serves Texas.
Western States
The mountain states occupy almost one-quarter of the land in the contiguous lower 48 states, but only about 8% of the US population resides there. It’s a perfect place for a satellite internet service like Starlink to shine, helping underserved and rural customers, while true high-speed broadband ISPs concentrate services in more municipal areas.
Pulse, a utility-provided ISP started in Loveland, Colo., wins here for both Best Gaming ISP and Highest Quality Gaming ISP. It has a reader satisfaction score that rivals that of GFiber, which is cheaper than Pulse and offers approximately 10 times its coverage. The fastest ISP in this gigantic region is sixth-place Bluepeak, which serves a lot of the West North Central Division, but did well in this division thanks to its Wyoming-based customers.
The Pacific encompasses the three West Coast states, as well as Hawaii and Alaska. We broke out the Best Gaming ISPs for the latter two states in our map above. Hawaii is again led by its home-grown solution, Hawaii Telecom. Unfortunately, Alaska users didn’t provide enough tests for any ISP this year. In California and for the rest of the division, the top performer is Sonic.
Sonic is the fastest, just ahead of Hotwire Fision. Sonic is also the winner for Highest Quality Gaming ISP (breaking a tie with Hotwire thanks to its superior speed). With those combined strengths, plus the best price per Mbps in the list, Sonic takes the Best Gaming ISP crown with ease.
The Best ISPs: Full Results
Here are the complete tables for all the charts above, including ISPs beyond the top 10 in each location. Access each table using the arrows or drop-down menu at the top; click the top cell for each column to reorder the rows (and click again to reorder in the opposite direction). Use the search to find a specific ISP.
Scores for speed and quality are based on 332,763 PCMag Speed Test results from US-based ISP users collected between Nov. 1, 2024, and Dec. 6, 2025. For the full methodology, click here. Click below to test your ISP right now with the PCMag Speed Test.
About Our Expert
Eric Griffith
Senior Editor, Features
Experience
I’ve been writing about computers, the internet, and technology professionally since 1992, more than half of that time with PCMag. I arrived at the end of the print era of PC Magazine as a senior writer. I served for a time as managing editor of business coverage before settling back into the features team for the last decade and a half. I write features on all tech topics, plus I handle several special projects, including the Readers’ Choice and Business Choice surveys and yearly coverage of the Best ISPs and Best Gaming ISPs, Best Products of the Year, and Best Brands (plus the Best Brands for Tech Support, Longevity, and Reliability).
I started in tech publishing right out of college, writing and editing stories about hardware and development tools. I migrated to software and hardware coverage for families, and I spent several years exclusively writing about the then-burgeoning technology called Wi-Fi. I was on the founding staff of several magazines, including Windows Sources, FamilyPC, and Access Internet Magazine. All of which are now defunct, and it’s not my fault. I have freelanced for publications as diverse as Sony Style, Playboy.com, and Flux. I got my degree at Ithaca College in, of all things, television/radio. But I minored in writing so I’d have a future.
In my long-lost free time, I wrote some novels, a couple of which are not just on my hard drive: BETA TEST (“an unusually lighthearted apocalyptic tale,” according to Publishers’ Weekly) and a YA book called KALI: THE GHOSTING OF SEPULCHER BAY. Go get them on Kindle.
I work from my home in Ithaca, NY, and did it long before pandemics made it cool.