St. Louis internet options compared

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Source: CNET analysis of provider data

EarthLink’s been around for decades, but these days, it leases internet infrastructure and wireless airwaves from other providers to resell home internet plans to consumers, including in St. Louis. As such, the company offers a mix of plans that use different technologies, from satellite to fiber to fixed wireless. EarthLink’s offerings typically offer slightly less value than the primary providers themselves, and since the company doesn’t control the infrastructure, customers are left to the mercy of primary providers when it comes to things like network slowdowns.

That means EarthLink usually isn’t your best bet for a fast, reliable connection at the best value. To the company’s credit, it doesn’t enforce data caps or prescheduled price increases on its plans, so you could probably do worse if you’re living somewhere without many options.

Optimum, formerly known as Suddenlink, offers cable internet service without data caps, which is appealing. In fact, the company’s first-year pricing is about as enticing as home internet gets, with 400Mbps download speeds available for just $70 per month. Prices soar after the first year, though (up to $95 per month for that 400Mbps plan). On top of that, availability in St. Louis is quite slim, as it’s limited mostly to select areas around Des Peres and Manchester. That means that Optimum isn’t likely to be available at your address. Even if it is, we’d recommend shopping around for a better long-term value.

Satellite internet services from and are available just about everywhere, but with high costs, long contracts and limited speeds, neither amounts to much more than a last resort for homes where literally nothing else is available. Between them, Viasat offers the potential for higher speeds, with downloads capped at 150Mbps as opposed to HughesNet’s 50Mbps, but the monthly costs are higher. Either way, you’ll need to pay hundreds up front to buy your equipment, and you can expect your speeds to come crashing down if you exceed a stingy data cap.

Depending on your address, you might also have access to , the satellite internet service from Elon Musk’s SpaceX. Speeds are higher and latency is lower thanks to Starlink’s low-Earth orbit satellites, which don’t require your signal to travel quite so far, but . Availability is a problem, as well: In some regions, Starlink currently says it may not be able to fulfill new requests for service at eligible addresses until later in the year.

Like Verizon, T-Mobile offers fixed wireless home internet service over the same airwaves it uses to offer mobile connectivity, including 5G. Top speeds aren’t quite as high as Verizon’s, with downloads maxing out at 245Mbps and uploads at 23Mbps, but the value is still pretty strong — $50 per month with no data caps and no price increase at 12 months. On top of that, a new option is available anywhere you can get a T-Mobile signal at all, though that option comes with a tight data cap of just 100GB per month — use more data than that in a given month, and T-Mobile will throttle your speeds down to painfully slow 2G levels of service.

Still, T-Mobile is well worth considering if faster fiber and cable plans aren’t available at your address, but Verizon offers plenty of availability in St. Louis and faster top speeds for the same monthly price, so I’d recommend starting there first.

Ultra Home Internet
Speaking of T-Mobile, another option offering home internet services in the St. Louis area is Ultra Home Internet, which leases wireless airwaves from T-Mobile to resell the same essential services. The problem is that Ultra’s store-brand cellular internet plans offer a lot less value than going direct with T-Mobile.

Instead of a flat rate of $50 per month with no data caps, Ultra offers the same speeds in four plans, starting at $55 per month with a very tight 25GB data cap. You can pay $80 per month instead to double that data cap to 50GB, or you can go with an “unlimited data” plan for $120 or $145 per month. Don’t let the name fool you, though — those still come with data caps (75GB and 100GB, respectively). The only difference is that Ultra will throttle your speed as much as it wants when you break the data cap on the first two plans, but when you break the cap with the “unlimited” plans, it’ll only throttle you down to speeds of 1Mbps. Gee, thanks.

Wisper is a regional fixed-wireless provider headquartered in Mascoutah, Illinois, and it’s been spending the past few years working to expand service throughout rural parts of Missouri, with antennas mounted up high on installations like water towers and grain elevators to deliver wireless internet service where other options might not be available. The company now says that it serves roughly 20,000 customers across Illinois, Missouri, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kansas and Indiana.

Service is still most prevalent east of the Mississippi in Illinois, in places like East St. Louis and Caseyville. With plans starting at $75 per month, download speeds of up to 400Mbps and no data caps or prescheduled price increases, it’s worth taking a look to see if Wisper is an option in the rural areas surrounding St. Louis.

What are the least expensive internet plans in St. Louis?

Just looking for the cheapest plans possible? If you’re trying to minimize your bill while staying online, here’s what you’ll find:

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Source: CNET analysis of provider data

The takeaway from that chart is that, in most cases, you should expect to spend at least $50 per month for home internet service in St. Louis. The only plan that costs less than that is from Optimum, which offers a first-year rate of $40 per month on its cheapest plan. Even then, that price shoots up to $65 after the first year, so it’s less of a bargain than a bait and switch.

Again, the best deal is AT&T Fiber, which offers symmetrical upload and download speeds of 300Mbps for $55 per month with no price increase after year one and no data caps. Verizon and T-Mobile offer good value too, with fixed rates of $50 per month for their cellular internet services and no data caps. Verizon might be particularly appealing if you have an existing Verizon mobile plan, as you might qualify for a discount on your internet bill, bringing your monthly price down to $35 to $45.

The Affordable Connectivity Program can help low-income households

The is a federal broadband benefit signed into law , and it offers eligible low-income households a $30 monthly discount on their internet bill. The wide majority of major providers are taking part in the program, and most make it pretty easy to sign up and put it to work. For instance, both AT&T and Spectrum offer ACP customers a 100Mbps plan for $30 per month — once the benefit kicks in, those plans are essentially free.

For more on the ACP, you can click here to see if you qualify or click here to see a full list of participating providers in Missouri, and you can check out the links below for provider-specific instructions on how to sign up:

What are the fastest internet plans in St. Louis?

Nationwide, the fastest internet plans come from companies that offer , with speeds as high as 5 gigabits per second (5,000Mbps) . That includes AT&T, and the company tells CNET that its multigig plans are available to “thousands of customers” in the St. Louis area — but for now, the wide majority of fiber-eligible addresses in St. Louis will only have access to speeds as high as 1,000Mbps.

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Source: CNET analysis of provider data

That’s about as fast as internet speeds in St. Louis currently get. Verizon technically offers top download speeds that are slightly faster at 1,000Mbps, but those speeds are entirely dependent upon the strength of the signal at your address, so it’s unlikely that you’ll hit speeds like that with any sort of consistency. And, unlike fiber internet plans, your upload speeds with Verizon will be much, much lower. The same goes for the fastest cable plan from Spectrum — it can match AT&T Fiber’s top St. Louis download speed of 1,000, but the upload speed is limited to just 35Mbps. With a fiber plan, your uploads will be just as fast as your downloads.

How CNET chose the best internet providers in St. Louis

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. So 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.

But it doesn’t end there. We go to the FCC’s website to check our data and ensure we’re considering every ISP that provides service in an area. We also input local addresses on provider websites to find specific options for residents. To evaluate how happy customers are with an ISP’s service, we look at sources including the American Customer Satisfaction Index and J.D. Power. ISP plans and prices are subject to frequent changes; all information provided is accurate as of the time 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? 

While the answer to those questions is often layered and complex, the providers who come closest to “yes” on all three are the ones we recommend. 

To explore our process in more depth, visit our how we test ISPs page.

Internet providers in St. Louis FAQs

How fast are internet plans in St. Louis?

Like in most major cities, you’ll find a wide range of options for getting online in St. Louis, with the largest providers being AT&T, Spectrum, Earthlink, T-Mobile and Verizon. Speeds will vary depending on your provider and your address, but download speeds of up to 1,000Mbps are available from multiple providers.

Is fiber internet available in St. Louis?

Yes. AT&T offers fiber-optic internet services in St. Louis, but your home needs to be wired for fiber in order to start service. In April 2022, an AT&T spokesperson told CNET that fiber services were “available to hundreds of thousands of customers in the St. Louis area” and added that the company planned to expand the reach of its fiber infrastructure in the area throughout the year.

The company also plans to bring new multigig fiber plans to the area with upload and download speeds as high as 5Gbps, but for now, those plans are only available to “tens of thousands of customers” in St. Louis, which is a small fraction of the company’s fiber footprint, overall. The rest of AT&T’s fiber eligible addresses can sign up for fiber plans with matching upload and download speeds of 300Mbps/500Mbps or the fastest option, which gets you download and upload speeds of 1,000Mbps.

Does St. Louis have Google Fiber?

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