How much choice does North Carolina actually have?
North Carolina ranks 8 of 52 for wired internet choice, among the best in the country. 8.8% of homes here have at most one wired company able to serve them, against 15.7% nationally.
Free to cite with attribution to WhereFiber. Rank 1 is the state with the fewest such homes. contact@wherefiber.com
| North Carolina | United States | |
|---|---|---|
| Residential locations | 4,310,745 | 114,550,235 |
| At most one wireline company in the block | 8.8% | 15.7% |
| In a block where nobody reports fiber | 20.6% | 27.9% |
| In a block with exactly one fiber company | 46.9% | 52.2% |
North Carolina has more wireline choice than the country as a whole, because a smaller share of the state is served by a single wired company. These are floors rather than estimates, for reasons we set out in the national study.
Providers serving North Carolina
Share of North Carolina residential locations each operator reports it can reach. A low percentage is not a bad network. It usually means a network concentrated in a few towns.
| Provider | Technology | Share of North Carolina covered |
|---|---|---|
| Spectrum | Cable | 79.0% |
| T-Mobile Fiber | Fiber | 68.3% |
| AT&T Fiber | Fiber | 61.1% |
| Verizon Fios | Fiber | 61.1% |
| Brightspeed | Fiber | 25.4% |
| Google Fiber | Fiber | 8.4% |
| Kinetic | Fiber | 6.0% |
| Optimum | Cable | 5.0% |
| Metronet | Fiber | 4.2% |
| Frontier Fiber | Fiber | 3.1% |
| Ripple Fiber | Fiber | 1.8% |
| TDS Telecom | Fiber | 1.1% |
| Ting Internet | Fiber | 0.9% |
| Vyve Broadband | Cable | 0.8% |
| Mediacom | Cable | 0.7% |
| Zito Media | Cable | 0.6% |
| Comporium | Mixed | 0.5% |
| Hotwire Communications | Fiber | 0.4% |
| Cox | Cable | Under 0.1% |
| Xfinity | Cable | Under 0.1% |
Covers the 69 operators we have mapped from FCC holding-company names to the brand people actually buy. Smaller operators that file under a name we have not yet matched are not listed here, so a local provider missing from this table may still serve you, because the address check below reads the raw filing and will show it.
What speeds are available across North Carolina
Share of North Carolina homes where at least one provider reports offering that speed on that technology. This is genuine state level data, the level the FCC actually publishes it at.
| Technology | 25/3 Mbps | 100/20 Mbps | 250/25 Mbps | 1 Gbps / 100 Mbps |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fiber | 59% | 59% | 59% | 58% |
| Cable | 81% | 81% | 81% | 5% |
| Fixed wireless | 82% | 42% | 2% | 0% |
| Any technology | 100% | 100% | 100% | 61% |
Cities in North Carolina
Reading this page honestly
A statewide percentage tells you about North Carolina. It does not tell you about your street. Fiber in particular was built out block by block, and nationally up to one in nine residential locations sits in a block where fiber exists and still does not reach the building, so a provider showing strong statewide coverage here can still tell you no.
Providers report their own coverage to the FCC and the data is known to overstate it. Where a provider says it cannot serve you, it is right and the filing is wrong.
Related: how much choice Americans have, state by state · fiber vs cable · fiber providers · cable providers