How California compares
Desktop vs mobile
By operating system
📡 Most-used test servers
Internet providers measured in California, ranked by speed
Median real-world speeds for the 10 fixed home internet providers with at least 100 distinct connections in California, fastest first. These are the speeds their customers measured, not advertised plan speeds, and not a statement of who can be bought at a given address.
| # | Provider | Download | Upload | Latency | Connections |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Race Communications | 295.3 | 210.8 | 16 ms | 100+ |
| 2 | Frontier | 271.2 | 149.3 | 15 ms | 1k+ |
| 3 | Sonic | 254.3 | 166.4 | 9 ms | 500+ |
| 4 | Spectrum | 208.8 | 24.4 | 23 ms | 5k+ |
| 5 | Comcast | 193.6 | 44.6 | 23 ms | 5k+ |
| 6 | Astound Broadband | 193.3 | 26.3 | 21 ms | 250+ |
| 7 | Consolidated Communications | 173.0 | 134.2 | 22 ms | 100+ |
| 8 | Cox | 166.1 | 42.1 | 21 ms | 1k+ |
| 9 | AT&T | 118.2 | 67.6 | 24 ms | 5k+ |
| 10 | Starlink | 20.7 | 11.4 | 32 ms | 500+ |
Starlink is a satellite service: a single browser stream over a link with a long round trip measures well below the figures satellite operators quote, and the latency column shows why.
Measured in California and named rather than ranked: T-Mobile US, Verizon. In California each of these is the operator's mobile network rather than a wired home line, and a browser test cannot tell a phone from a 5G home gateway on the same network. Ranking them beside fibre and cable would compare two different products.
Also measured, with too few connections for a median we would stand behind: Google Fiber, Optimum.
Internet in California: what the data shows
In California, the median real-world download speed is 127.3 Mbps, 13% below the median published state of 145.6 Mbps, ranking #33 of the 39 states and districts with enough data to publish.
California ranks ten providers yet sits 33rd overall, and its leader measures 2.3 times the state median, one of the widest such gaps in the table.
Uploads median 32.4 Mbps and latency 26 ms.
Desktop tests run about 1.3× faster than mobile, and mobile is 30% of tests.
Across the 10 fixed providers with enough connections to rank here, medians run from 295.3 Mbps (Race Communications) down to 20.7 Mbps (Starlink), a 14.3× spread inside one state. Which network reaches an address matters more here than which state the address is in.
The California sample carries enough tests to name 14 providers, 34 counties and 102 cities and localities. Los Angeles was its most-used test server, taking 54% of the tests among the five busiest.
Figures are medians of 50k+ browser-based tests from 25k+ distinct connections, first half of 2026. Each connection counts at most three times, third-party sources are capped, and datacenter networks are excluded, so one busy line cannot move a state. That makes these numbers a different series from the national figure on the United States page, and they are not directly comparable to it.
Where the California data comes from
34 counties with enough tests to name:
Show all 34 countiesShow fewer
102 cities and localities with enough tests to name:
Show all 102 cities and localitiesShow fewer
Counties, cities and localities are named, never numbered, and listed alphabetically. Speeds below state level are part of the licensed dataset.
Where California ranks
Test your own speed in California
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Frequently asked questions
What is the average internet speed in California?
The median real-world download speed in California is 127.3 Mbps, with 32.4 Mbps upload and 26 ms latency, measured from 50k+ browser-based speed tests on SpeedOf.Me.
Where does California rank among US states?
California ranks #33 of the 39 states and districts we publish, 13% below the median published state. We publish a state only where at least 2,000 distinct connections back the number, so 12 of the 51 are not listed at all.
Why is this lower than the speed my provider advertises?
An advertised speed is the maximum the line can carry. This is a real-world measurement through a browser to neutral servers on the open internet, which is what a video call, a download or a game actually gets. Wi-Fi, the device and time of day all sit between the two.
Which internet provider is fastest in California?
Of the fixed home internet providers with at least 100 distinct connections in California, Race Communications has the highest median real-world download speed at 295.3 Mbps, ahead of Frontier at 271.2 Mbps. That is the median its customers measured here, not an advertised plan speed, and a provider is only as fast as the line that reaches your address.
Which internet providers were measured in California?
14 providers had enough tests in California to name: Astound Broadband, AT&T, Comcast, Consolidated Communications, Cox, Frontier, Google Fiber, Optimum, Race Communications, Sonic, Spectrum, Starlink, T-Mobile US, Verizon. 10 of them carry a ranked median speed on this page: the rest are either a carrier's mobile network in California rather than a wired home line, or below the 100 distinct connections we require before publishing a median. That list is not a market-share estimate or a statement of who can be bought at a given address.
Are speeds on phones lower than on computers in California?
Tests run on phones and tablets, over home Wi-Fi or a cellular connection, are 30% of the California sample and median 108.7 Mbps. Tests run on desktops and laptops, which are almost always on a fixed line's Wi-Fi, median 136.3 Mbps. This is a device comparison, not a comparison of providers.
How current is this data?
It covers first half of 2026 and was last updated on 2026-09-05. The dataset is free to reuse with attribution under CC BY 4.0.
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