Internet Providers in Raleigh, North Carolina

Best Internet Providers in Raleigh, NC

The best internet provider in Raleigh is Google Fiber. Customers rave about it; this is because it offers excellent speeds (up to 8 Gbps), a great Wi-Fi router system, and fair prices that start at $70 per month.

Google Fiber isn’t available everywhere, but Raleigh residents have another great fiber internet option in the form of AT&T Fiber. AT&T Fiber can reach stunning speeds up to 5 Gbps. Also, it offers a nice variety of plan tiers and prices, and gets high marks from its subscribers for performance and customer service. We recommend it nearly as highly as Google Fiber; plus, it’s likely to be a fit for more Raleigh residents because of its larger footprint in the city.

If you can’t get fiber at your address, your next best option is Raleigh’s cable internet provider, Spectrum. Spectrum offers solid speeds. Plus, its internet bundles start at $49.99 per month; it also offers internet-only plans, which start at $49.99 per month.

There are other options for home internet in Raleigh, including T-Mobile 5G Home Internet. Generally speaking, we recommend powering your home’s Wi-Fi with a wired connection type like fiber or cable — they’re still faster and more reliable in most cases than the wireless options.

Fastest Internet Providers in Raleigh, NC

Raleigh has several really fast broadband providers; however, there are none faster than Google Fiber, which offers speeds of up to 8 Gbps on its fastest plans.

Of course, for most households, this might be overkill. We recommend fiber internet as the fastest and most reliable connection type; we also recommend 500 Mbps as a baseline for truly fast internet (though many households can get by with 250 Mbps or less — it just may not always feel “fast”). If you’re streaming video (especially if it’s live TV and/or on more than one device at once), you’ll feel the difference between 250 Mbps and higher-end speeds like 1 Gbps; this holds true if you’re playing online games, taking video calls, and doing other high-bandwidth things. Beyond 1 Gbps, most households will have a tougher time noticing the improvement.

Internet Availability in Raleigh, NC

Depending on where you live in Raleigh, you may have different options for your home Wi-Fi internet service. Let’s take a look at where in Raleigh certain providers are available.

We can start with an easy one: Spectrum covers 94.8% of Raleigh, and it’s available at virtually every residential address in town. No matter where in Raleigh you live, you should be able to get an internet plan or bundle from Spectrum.

Fiber coverage is where things get trickier. Google Fiber, a very popular choice in town, is only available in 46.8% of the city. Other areas may be covered by AT&T Fiber, which has 65.0% coverage.

There are a few big chunks of town where Google Fiber’s footprint is concentrated. One is up in the northern part of town: Northwest Raleigh and North Raleigh. If you live near Route 70 or Route 50, or up near the North Ridge Country Club, then you’re likely to have Google Fiber as an option. That’s less true if you’re in Northeast Raleigh, which is mostly missing from Google Fiber’s footprint.

Another good spot for Google Fiber coverage is in East Raleigh, south of the highways and east of downtown; the downtown area itself doesn’t have much access to Google Fiber. If you live in Battery Heights or Worthdale, you can probably get Google Fiber.

The last big chunk of Google Fiber coverage is in Southwest Raleigh — mostly in the areas north and west of NC State’s campus.

So, what about AT&T Fiber? The good news is that you can get it almost everywhere in Raleigh, including many areas that aren’t served by Google Fiber. Only a few areas in town are missing from AT&T Fiber’s network, such as some blocks in the downtown area and some areas near NC State’s North Campus.