Compare Minneapolis Internet Service Providers
There are 5 Technologies that are primarily used by internet providers in Minneapolis:
- Cable - By far the most familiar and popular. Fed over Coaxial cable, often with cable TV or phone. Comcast, Charter and Mediacom are the main cable internet providers here in Minneapolis.
- Standard DSL - The 2nd most popular. Fed over telephone lines, its often less expensive and than most choices. Centurylink, Frontier and Windstream and the main internet service providers for DSL in Minnesota
- Fiber to the Node DSL - A technolgy where fiber is brought the "green boxes" on the curb, and then copper based DSL from that box to the home. With FTTN, much faster speeds can be attained, with much better latency. Centurylink and Frontier offer FTTN in many parts of Minnesota.
- Fiber to the Home - The ULTIMATE internet experience! Fiber Optic lines are the main backbone of all internet traffic. with every provider using it (including cable companies) as their direct connection to the main hubs for every city. It can handle speeds up 10 Gigs or more. Centurylink is the largest provider for Fiber to the Home in Minnesota.
- Satellite Internet - The newest generation of Satellite internet is much faster and than the previous. It offers speeds up to 100megs now, with unlimited data. The two drawbacks are slow latency and ping times, and higher costs. But if that is your only option, it is a solid one.
This chart is taken from the Netflix ISP Speed Index. The Netflix ISP Speed Index is a measure of prime time Netflix performance on particular ISPs (internet service providers) around the globe, and not a measure of overall performance for other services/data that may travel across the specific ISP network.
So this chart is great measure of what your TV streaming services will be like for each provider.
So this chart is great measure of what your TV streaming services will be like for each provider.
A few important notes about this chart:
- It's based upon nationwide service, and is not specific to Minnesota, so results will vary from block to block. Which is why Upstream is here. We look at your individual address, and THEN make the best suggestion.
- The results are skewed towards cable providers. Cable providers (such as Comcast/Xfinity, Charter, etc) don't generally serve rural areas like DSL providers do (Centurylink, Frontier, etc). In rural areas, the long distance runs of copper wire "eat up" the electrical current, and slow the transmission of packets. So when these rural area's speeds are averaged into their normal city speeds, they appear to be slower.
- These scores are all within 1Mbps of each other. They all work well. Always shop for the best value.
