Best Internet Providers in San Antonio, Texas

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Source: CNET blockysis of provider data.

Other available internet providers in San Antonio

You can find many broadband options across the San Antonio-New Braunfels metropolitan region. Availability depends on your address, but you may be able to find some appealing choices beyond our highlighted picks. 

• Astound Broadband: You’ll be hard-pressed to find better starting rates in the region than what you’ll get from this cable internet provider. In San Antonio, Astound’s cheapest plan is a 300Mbps tier for $30 per month. This is excellent value for a provider’s opening offering. Most ISPs, especially cable providers, will have a starting plan of around 50 to 100Mbps. If you’re looking for speed, Astound’s fastest plan — 1,500Mbps — is also one of the best values in the city, costing up to $70 monthly. All Astound plans come with an optional one-year or two-year price guarantee option — plans cost $5 more when bundled with a two-year lock-in. But beware of a potentially steep increase afterward. Astound’s coverage is mostly on the central-north side of San Antonio in Alamo Heights, Kirby, Windcrest, Midtown, Dignowity Hill, Balcones Heights and Castle Hills.
• Ranch Wireless: This rural wireless provider covers markets throughout south-central Texas. While it doesn’t operate in San Antonio, it does reach many towns on the outskirts, including New Braunfels in the northeast, Adkins and Calaveras in the east, and several rural locations to the south, including Campbellton, Charlotte, Jourdanton and Pleasanton. Ranch Wireless features plans ranging from $30 per month for 1Mbps download and 30GB of data to $120 monthly for unlimited data and 25Mbps download speed.
• Rise Broadband: This fixed wireless provider offers internet service on the far east and upper northwest portions of San Antonio. It offers speeds up to 1,000Mbps and unlimited data, too. That makes it an especially viable option for residents outside city limits, in towns like Floresville, Jourdanton, Pleasanton and San Geronimo. Though plan availability will vary according to your region.
• Satellite internet: If you live in San Antonio proper, you should have little need for satellite internet service. There are much faster (and cheaper) alternatives to be found, but suppose you live in one of the many suburban and rural areas in the San Antonio-New Braunfels region. In that case, you might have reason to consider Hughesnet or Viasat, the leading satellite broadband provider. A big drawback to both is that they each require a two-year contract commitment. Elon Musk’s Starlink has them beat on that front — it nixes all term contract agreements. However its equipment still requires a steep upfront cost of nearly $349.
• Verizon 5G Home Internet: This provider’s 5G fixed wireless home internet product claims a similar all-in price that includes all equipment and fees for $50-70 per month to T-Mobile ($35-$55 per month for customers with qualifying Verizon 5G mobile plans). Why have I listed T-Mobile higher? Verizon’s coverage is strongest in metro areas, while T-Mobile has higher speeds and flexes its muscles more capably in rural areas. That better fits the San Antonio-New Braunfels region.

Cheap internet options in San Antonio

The average starting price for home internet in San Antonio is approximately $46 a month. That considers the promo prices you’ll get at the beginning, not the standard rates you’ll get hit with a year or so later. The lowest starting price in the River City is Astound Broadband’s 300Mbps plan for $30 monthly. It is a great value for a less expensive internet option — if you’re lucky enough to live at an address they service.

Source: CNET blockysis of provider data.

How to find internet deals and promotions in San Antonio

The best internet deals and promotions in San Antonio depend on what discounts are available during a given time. Most deals are short-lived, but we check frequently for the latest offers. 

San Antonio internet providers, such as Astound Broadband, Spectrum and Rise Broadband, may offer lower introductory pricing or streaming add-ons for a limited time. Others, including AT&T, Google Fiber and Verizon, run the same standard pricing year-round. 

For a more extensive list of promos, check out our guide on the best internet deals. 

How fast is San Antonio broadband?

As I mentioned earlier, River City is one of the fastest broadband cities in Texas and one of the country’s fastest cities when it comes to internet download speeds. According to the latest results from the speed-testing site Ookla, which tracks city speeds based on daily tests run by customers across the US, San Antonio residents enjoy median download speeds of over 271Mbps and median uploads of approximately 38Mbps. (Disclosure: Ookla is owned by the same parent company as CNET, Ziff Davis.) This solidifies the San Antonio metro area in the country’s top 10, ahead of kindred Texas cities like Dallas and Houston.

The city’s impressive internet speed numbers are undoubtedly buoyed by the fiber internet service of AT&T (which features a 5Gbps plan in some areas of the city) and Google Fiber, whose cheapest (and slowest) plan is a full gigabit and fastest is an 8-gig offering.  

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Source: CNET blockysis of provider data.

Internet providers in popular cities near San Antonio

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What’s a good internet speed?

Most internet connection plans can now handle basic productivity and communication tasks. If you’re looking for an internet plan that can accommodate video conferencing, streaming video or gaming, you’ll have a better experience with a more robust connection. Here’s an overview of the recommended minimum download speeds for various applications, according to the FCC. Note that these are only guidelines and that internet speed, service and performance vary by connection type, provider and address.

For more information, refer to our guide on how much internet speed you really need.

• 0 to 5Mbps allows you to tackle the basics: browsing the internet, sending and receiving email and streaming low-quality video.
• 5 to 40Mbps gives you higher-quality video streaming and video conferencing.
• 40 to 100Mbps should give one user sufficient bandwidth to satisfy the demands of modern telecommuting, video streaming and online gaming. 
• 100 to 500Mbps allows one to two users to simultaneously engage in high-bandwidth activities like video conferencing, streaming and online gaming. 
• 500 to 1,000Mbps allows three or more users to engage in high-bandwidth activities at the same time.

How CNET chose the best internet providers in San Antonio

Internet service providers are numerous and regional. Unlike the latest smartphone, laptop, router or kitchen tool, it’s impractical to personally test every ISP in a given city. What’s our approach? We start by researching the pricing, availability and speed information drawing on our own historical ISP data, the provider sites and mapping information from the Federal Communications Commission at FCC.gov.

It doesn’t end there: We go to the FCC’s website to check our data and ensure we consider every ISP that provides service in an area. We also input local addresses on provider websites to find specific options for residents. We look at sources, including the American Customer Satisfaction Index and J.D. Power, to evaluate how happy customers are with an ISP’s service. ISP plans and prices are subject to frequent changes; all information provided is accurate as of publication. 

Once we have this localized information, we ask three main questions: 

• Does the provider offer access to reasonably fast internet speeds? 
• Do customers get decent value for what they’re paying? 
• Are customers happy with their service? 

The answers to those questions are often layered and complex, but the providers that come closest to “yes” on all three are the ones we recommend. When selecting the cheapest internet service, we look for the plans with the lowest monthly fee, although we also factor in things like price increases, equipment fees and contracts. Choosing the fastest internet service is relatively straightforward. We look at advertised upload and download speeds and consider real-world speed data from sources like Ookla and FCC reports.

To explore our process in more depth, visit our how we test ISPs page.

What’s the bottom line on San Antonio internet providers?

We mention it often in our CNET home internet reviews, but it bears repeating: All things being equal, fiber internet service trumps other internet connection types every time. What matters is what’s available at your address. You’re in great shape if you can get AT&T Fiber or Google Fiber. If not, there are still affordable cable options — like Astound Broadband and Spectrum —  that’ll get you plenty of speed and decent reliability. 

Internet providers in San Antonio FAQs

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