How Iowa compares
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Internet providers measured in Iowa, ranked by speed
Median real-world speeds for the 4 fixed home internet providers with at least 100 distinct connections in Iowa, 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 | Metronet | 258.7 | 147.6 | 21 ms | 250+ |
| 2 | Mediacom | 205.6 | 40.6 | 32 ms | 250+ |
| 3 | ImOn Communications | 160.3 | 112.9 | 20 ms | 100+ |
| 4 | CenturyLink | 45.6 | 23.7 | 40 ms | 100+ |
Measured in Iowa and named rather than ranked: AT&T, T-Mobile US, Verizon. In Iowa 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, Windstream.
Internet in Iowa: what the data shows
In Iowa, the median real-world download speed is 115.3 Mbps, 21% below the median published state of 145.6 Mbps, ranking #36 of the 39 states and districts with enough data to publish. That is among the slowest we publish.
Iowa is the most symmetric state we publish, 60.7 Mbps up against 115.3 down, a ratio no other state matches.
Uploads median 60.7 Mbps and latency 30 ms.
Mobile tests run about 1.1× faster than desktop, and mobile is 30% of tests.
Across the 4 fixed providers with enough connections to rank here, medians run from 258.7 Mbps (Metronet) down to 45.6 Mbps (CenturyLink), a 5.7× spread inside one state. Which network reaches an address matters more here than which state the address is in.
The Iowa sample carries enough tests to name 9 providers, 7 counties and 6 cities and localities.
Figures are medians of 2k+ browser-based tests from 2k+ 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 Iowa data comes from
7 counties with enough tests to name:
6 cities and localities with enough tests to name:
Counties, cities and localities are named, never numbered, and listed alphabetically. Speeds below state level are part of the licensed dataset.
Where Iowa ranks
Test your own speed in Iowa
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Frequently asked questions
What is the average internet speed in Iowa?
The median real-world download speed in Iowa is 115.3 Mbps, with 60.7 Mbps upload and 30 ms latency, measured from 2k+ browser-based speed tests on SpeedOf.Me.
Where does Iowa rank among US states?
Iowa ranks #36 of the 39 states and districts we publish, 21% 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 Iowa?
Of the fixed home internet providers with at least 100 distinct connections in Iowa, Metronet has the highest median real-world download speed at 258.7 Mbps, ahead of Mediacom at 205.6 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 Iowa?
9 providers had enough tests in Iowa to name: AT&T, CenturyLink, Google Fiber, ImOn Communications, Mediacom, Metronet, T-Mobile US, Verizon, Windstream. 4 of them carry a ranked median speed on this page: the rest are either a carrier's mobile network in Iowa 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 Iowa?
Tests run on phones and tablets, over home Wi-Fi or a cellular connection, are 30% of the Iowa sample and median 122.2 Mbps. Tests run on desktops and laptops, which are almost always on a fixed line's Wi-Fi, median 112.0 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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