Internet Providers in Minneapolis, Minnesota

Best Internet Providers in Minneapolis, MN

US Internet is the best internet provider in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Though it covers only a relatively small portion of the city, it’s very popular among its customers. US Internet offers fiber internet, which is the type of broadband that we recommend most.

Other areas of Minneapolis are served by Quantum Fiber, which is another excellent fiber internet provider. Quantum offers speeds of up to 8 Gbps, and it makes a very good choice of broadband provider for most households.

If fiber isn’t an option in your area of Minneapolis, you can fall back on the city’s omnipresent cable internet provider, Xfinity. Xfinity offers speeds of up to 1 Gbps on its top plans and bundles. While not as great as fiber, cable internet can be very fast — much faster than DSL, and more than fast enough for most households.

Fastest Internet Providers in Minneapolis, MN

If you’re looking to soup up your home Wi-Fi network in Minneapolis, look no further than Quantum Fiber: Its top plan reaches speeds up to 1 Gbps, making it the fastest option in town.

When considering speeds, we recommend that you put a premium on fiber internet connections. All internet service companies advertise speeds of “up to” a certain rate, because real-world speeds will always fluctuate with use. But fiber internet connections hold up better during high-traffic hours than cable or DSL connections do, meaning that you’re getting more of the speed that you’re paying for. Fiber internet also offers very high upload speeds. While not as important as download speeds (which are the speeds we’re usually talking about when we talk about internet speed), upload speeds can be important for certain activities, like broadcasting your own livestream for other internet users to watch.

Internet Availability in Minneapolis, MN

Minneapolis is technically served by 12 internet providers, but most shoppers will only need to consider about two or three. One of these will be the area’s cable internet provider, which is Xfinity. You can get an Xfinity plan at just about any address in the city. The other providers to consider are the city’s two fiber internet providers, Quantum Fiber and US Internet — and that’s where you’ll need to consider availability in your area of Minneapolis.

US Internet’s provider footprint is almost entirely south of the Mississippi River. It doesn’t cover much of downtown, Phillips, or Phillips West, but it does offer service in just about every other neighborhood on the South Side of Minneapolis: Lowry Hill, Seward, Powderhorn, Longfellow, Bryant, Standish, Southwest, and so on, all the way down to the Crosstown Highway and the Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport.

Quantum Fiber offers a fair amount of coverage in the south part of town, too, particularly once you get south of Powderhorn. But its also a much-needed source of fiber internet on the north side of town, where US Internet isn’t around. Neighborhoods in Near North and Northeast Minneapolis have a good chance at being able to sign up for a fiber home internet plan from Quantum Fiber. (If you’re wondering, Quantum Fiber is also the best bet for fiber internet over in St. Paul — there’s no US Internet coverage on that side of the Mississippi.)

The only other big provider in Minneapolis is CenturyLink, which offers DSL coverage. Like Xfinity, CenturyLink offers plans just about everywhere in town — even downtown, where fiber options are basically nonexistent.