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From Busch Stadium to the Gateway Arch, the St. Louis metropolitan area is home to about 2.8 million residents, making it one of the largest metro regions in the Midwest. Everyone needs access to the internet to stay connected these days, so what are the best internet providers St. Louis offers its residents?
If you're looking for internet service, you'll find a variety of options for getting online, including cable connections, fixed wireless services, high-speed fiber hookups and new options like 5G home internet. Still, you'll need to check what's available at your address before you sign up for anything.
You can plug your ZIP code into the tool above to do exactly that, but you've come to the right post if you need additional help understanding your options. Keep reading for a full rundown of the top internet providers in St. Louis and a breakdown of the fastest and most affordable internet plans in the area.
The top internet providers in St. Louis
Following extensive research into the respective plans, prices, speeds, terms and technologies of each of the major internet players in the St, Louis area, here are the providers we think you should turn to first:
AT&T: Best fiber service among internet providers in St. Louis
Missouri is a middle-of-the-pack state as far as fiber internet availability is concerned. Still, you will find fiber connections from AT&T available to hundreds of thousands of customers in select parts of the St. Louis area. It's the city's only major fiber provider, and service is limited to homes that are wired accordingly, but after a quick scan, I was able to find pockets of fiber availability in multiple neighborhoods, including University City, Sycamore Hills, Northwoods, Dutchtown, Brentwood and other areas. If it's available at your address, it should definitely be one of the first options you consider.
For starters, AT&T Fiber offers fast, symmetrical upload and download speeds starting at 300 megabits per second, and gigabit service with download speeds of 940Mbps and upload speeds of 880Mbps is available across all fiber-eligible addresses in the area. The company's new, ultrafast multigig plans aren't widely available in St. Louis yet, but a company spokesperson said, "AT&T will continue to roll out multigig speeds across its fiber footprint and densify fiber in the St. Louis area."
As for value, AT&T Fiber prices range from $55 to $80 per month with no data caps, no contracts and no set price increase after 12 months, which is a rarity in home internet. You'll also frequently find bonus offers from AT&T for signing up online. All of that, coupled with a relatively strong customer satisfaction track record from organizations like JD Power and the American Customer Satisfaction Index, is why AT&T Fiber is one of CNET's top-recommended internet services overall.
If AT&T doesn't offer fiber service at your address, there's a very good chance that you'll have access to one of AT&T's DSL internet plans instead. Those are much, much slower than fiber (or cable, for that matter), and unlike the company's fiber plans, they include data caps and fixed price increases at 12 months. You'll want to seek something better if that's all that's available (keep reading for suggestions), but put it right at the top of your list if AT&T Fiber is an option.
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Spectrum: Best high-speed availability among internet providers in St. Louis
If fiber isn't available at your address, cable internet is likely your next best option. Spectrum boasts the best availability throughout the area -- and it's also CNET's top-recommended cable internet provider, thanks to high speeds, reasonable rates, low equipment costs and no data caps whatsoever.
Specifically, Spectrum's cable internet packages range in download speed from 200Mbps to 940Mbps, though the upload speeds are much slower, coming in at 10Mbps to 35Mbps. You can expect to pay $50 to $90 per month during your first year and $75 to $115 per month after that, plus a $5 monthly fee if you need to rent a router. With no data caps, no contracts and no additional recurring fees to worry about, Spectrum simplifies home internet a lot better than most competitors -- making it a very solid choice.
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Verizon: Best 5G wireless option among internet providers in St. Louis
Connecting your home to the internet over 5G wireless airwaves is a relatively new trend in broadband, and you'll find service available in St. Louis from both Verizon and T-Mobile, as well as smaller providers like Ultra and King Street Wireless that lease airwaves for resale. Whether or not it's an option at your address depends on whether you've got a signal that's strong enough to support home broadband use, so you'll need to check to see which providers, if any, are an option at your address.
Between them all, your best bet is to start with Verizon, which offers both 5G and 4G/LTE fixed-wireless services. With limited speeds, the latter is nothing to get too excited about, but if the signal is strong enough at your address to support 5G service, you're in luck because Verizon's 5G home internet offers the potential for near-gigabit download speeds with no data caps at an appealing flat rate of $50 per month with a two-year price guarantee, or $70 per month if you want to make that a three-year price guarantee. Either way, you can cut your bill in half and make that $25 or $35 per month if you've already got a qualifying Verizon mobile plan.
Speeds like those depend upon Verizon's 5G Ultra Wideband coverage -- but according to the company's service map, St. Louis is pretty well-covered (just check out the abundance of dark red in the coverage map above). That means that St. Louis residents have better odds than most of finding a fast signal available at their address, so it's worth checking to see if service is available.
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St. Louis internet options compared
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Internet technology | Speed range | Price range (first year) | Price range (after 12 months) | Data caps |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AT&T Home Internet | DSL | 10Mbps-100Mbps downloads, 1Mbps-20Mbps uploads | $55 per month | $70 per month | 1TB (no data cap with 100Mbps plan) |
| AT&T Fiber | Fiber | 300Mbps-940Mbps downloads, 300Mbps-880Mbps uploads | $55-$80 per month | $55-$80 per month | None |
| Spectrum | Cable | 200Mbps-940Mbps downloads, 10Mbps-35Mbps uploads | $50-$80 per month | $75-$115 per month (prices on faster plans don't go up until 24 months) | None |
| Suddenlink | Cable | 300Mbps-940Mbps downloads, 20Mbps-35Mbps uploads | $40-$80 per month | $110-$140 per month | None |
| T-Mobile Home Internet | 5G/LTE | 33Mbps-182Mbps downloads, 6Mbps-23Mbps uploads | $50 per month | $50 per month | None |
| Ultra Home Internet | 5G/LTE | 35Mbps-115Mbps downloads, 6Mbps-23Mbps uploads | $55-$145 per month | $55-$145 per month | 25GB-100GB |
| Verizon | 5G/LTE | 85Mbps-1,000Mbps downloads, 50Mbps uploads | $50-$70 per month (50% less with a qualifying Verizon mobile plan) | $50-$70 per month (50% less with a qualifying Verizon mobile plan) | None |
| Wisper Internet | Fixed wireless | 25Mbps-400Mbps downloads, 5Mbps-30Mbps uploads | $65-$140 per month | $65-$140 per month | None |
*Pricing per month plus taxes for length of contract. Additional fees and terms may apply. Pricing varies by location and availability. All prices subject to change at any time. May or may not be available based on service address. Speeds may vary. As of 10/12/22.
Brown Dog Networks
A local fixed wireless provider based in St. Louis, Brown Dog Networks can't claim to offer fast speeds for everyone. At $55 per month, its cheapest residential plan offers download speeds that top out at 768 kilobits per second (less than 1Mbps), and the company's fastest residential plan only offers downloads of up to 3Mbps.
Still, the company tells CNET that its plans for apartment complexes and other multidwelling units offer download speeds as high as 120Mbps at tax-included rates of $25 to $50 per month, and that's without data caps or preplanned price increases. Plus, the company's local footprint covers a decent chunk of the St. Louis market west of the Mississippi, including rural internet access in Jefferson and Franklin counties. Suppose you're at an underserviced address without access to wired fiber, cable service or a usable 5G signal; in that case, Brown Dog might be worth a look as a less expensive alternative to satellite internet.
EarthLink
EarthLink's been around for decades, but these days, it leases internet infrastructure and wireless airwaves from other providers to resell home internet plans to consumers, including in St. Louis. As such, the company offers a mix of plans that use different technologies, from satellite to fiber to fixed wireless. EarthLink's offerings typically offer slightly less value than the primary providers themselves, and since the company doesn't control the infrastructure, customers are left to the mercy of primary providers when it comes to things like network slowdowns.
That means EarthLink usually isn't your best bet for a fast, reliable connection at the best value. To the company's credit, it doesn't enforce data caps of prescheduled price increases on its plans, so you could probably do worse if you're living somewhere without many options.
Satellite internet
Satellite internet services from HughesNet and Viasat are available just about everywhere, but with high costs, long contracts and limited speeds, neither one amounts to much more than a last resort for homes where literally nothing else is available. Between them, Viasat offers the potential for higher speeds, with downloads capped at 100Mbps as opposed to HughesNet's 25Mbps, but the monthly costs are higher. Either way, you'll need to pay hundreds up front to buy your equipment, and you can expect your speeds to come crashing down if you exceed a stingy data cap.
Depending on your address, you might also have access to Starlink, the satellite internet service from Elon Musk's SpaceX. Speeds are higher and latency is lower thanks to Starlink's low-earth orbit satellites, which don't require your signal to travel quite so far, but the costs are still sky-high at $110 per month and $599 up front. Availability is a problem, as well: In some regions, Starlink currently says it may not be able to fulfill new requests for service at eligible addresses until 2023 or later.
Suddenlink
Like Spectrum, Suddenlink offers cable internet service without data caps, which is appealing. In fact, the company's first-year pricing is about as enticing as home internet gets, with gigabit download speeds available for just $80 per month. Prices soar after the first year, though (up to $140 per month for that gigabit plan). On top of that, availability in St. Louis is quite slim, as it's limited mostly to select areas around Des Peres and Manchester. That means that Suddenlink isn't likely to be available at your address. Even if it is, we'd recommend shopping around for a better long-term value.
T-Mobile
Like Verizon, T-Mobile offers fixed wireless home internet service over the same airwaves it uses to offer mobile connectivity, including 5G. Top speeds aren't quite as high as Verizon's, with downloads maxing out at 182Mbps and uploads at 35Mbps, but the value is still pretty strong -- $50 per month with no data caps and no price increase at 12 months. On top of that, a new T-Mobile Home Internet Lite option is available anywhere you can get a T-Mobile signal at all, though that option comes with a tight data cap of just 100GB per month -- use more data than that in a given month, and T-Mobile will throttle your speeds down to painfully slow, 2G levels of service.
Still, T-Mobile is well worth considering if faster fiber and cable plans aren't available at your address, but Verizon offers plenty of availability in St. Louis and faster top speeds for the same monthly price, so I'd recommend starting there first.
Ultra Home Internet
Speaking of T-Mobile, another option offering home internet services in the St. Louis area is Ultra Home Internet, which leases wireless airwaves from T-Mobile to resell the same essential services. The problem is that Ultra's store-brand cellular internet plans offer a lot less value than going direct with T-Mobile.
Instead of a flat rate of $50 per month with no data caps, Ultra offers the same speeds in four plans, starting at $55 per month with a very tight 25GB data cap. You can pay $80 per month instead to double that data cap to 50GB, or you can go with an "unlimited data" plan for $120 or $145 per month. Don't let the name fool you, though -- those still come with data caps (75GB and 100GB, respectively). The only difference is that Ultra will throttle your speed as much as it wants when you break the data cap on the first two plans, but when you break the cap with the "unlimited" plans, it'll only throttle you down to speeds of 1Mbps. Gee, thanks.
Wisper Internet
Wisper is a regional fixed-wireless provider headquartered in Mascoutah, Illinois, and it's been spending the past few years working to expand service throughout rural parts of Missouri, with antennas mounted up high on installations like water towers and grain elevators to deliver wireless internet service where other options might not be available. The company now says that it serves roughly 20,000 customers across Illinois, Missouri, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kansas and Indiana.
Service is still most prevalent east of the Mississippi in Illinois, in places like East St. Louis and Caseyville. With plans starting at $65 per month, download speeds of up to 400Mbps and no data caps or prescheduled price increases, it's worth taking a look to see if Wisper is an option in the rural areas surrounding St. Louis.
What are the least expensive internet plans in St. Louis?
Just looking for the cheapest plans possible? If you're trying to minimize your bill while staying online, here's what you'll find: