Satellite internet providers in the United States
4 operators report satellite service to the FCC. About 100% of US homes can get satellite at 100 Mbps or better. They are national rather than regional, so unlike wired options the question is almost never whether it reaches you.
What satellite actually is
An orbital link to a dish. It reaches locations nothing else does, which is its entire case and a strong one where it applies. Latency is higher for reasons of physics rather than engineering, so it is usually the option of last resort.
Satellite availability nationally
| Speed | Share of US homes |
|---|---|
| 25/3 Mbps | 100.0% |
| 100/20 Mbps | 99.7% |
| 250/25 Mbps | 99.7% |
| 1 Gbps / 100 Mbps | 0.0% |
Satellite providers we cover
Ranked by reported residential satellite locations. We have detailed coverage pages for 0 of the 4 operators nationally, starting with the largest and the ones people actually search for.
| Provider | Residential locations | States |
|---|
Check satellite at your address →
How many US homes can actually get a gigabit, and how that varies by state and county, is measured in our gigabit availability study.
Who satellite is actually for
Satellite reaches essentially every address in the country, so the question is never whether you can get it. It is whether you have to.
1,676,194 US residential locations, 1.5% of the country, have no wired internet company at all reporting service. For those homes satellite is not the last resort, it is the only resort.
Everywhere else it competes with a wire, and the honest comparison is latency rather than headline speed. Satellite latency is set by the distance to orbit, which is physics rather than engineering, so it does not improve with a better plan.
The states where a wired option is least likely, by the share of homes with at most one wired company able to serve them:
| State | At most one wired company | No fiber in the block |
|---|---|---|
| North Dakota | 39.3% | 22.2% |
| Massachusetts | 37.9% | 38.5% |
| Alaska | 36.6% | 69.4% |
| South Dakota | 35.8% | 17.5% |
| Delaware | 35.5% | 33.5% |
| Montana | 33.9% | 46.9% |
| Wyoming | 28.2% | 41.1% |
| Maryland | 26.8% | 25.4% |
Figures from our census block level count of wired competition, computed across every US census block in the current FCC filing.
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