Find out what internet you actually need.
Six questions. One honest answer. We'll tell you the speed range that fits your house, whether fiber is worth the price, and which providers cover your block. Free, no email, no upsell — runs entirely in your browser.
Recommended by no one. Sourced from FCC, ITU-T, Ookla, OpenVault.
Why is your internet slow?
Sometimes fiber is the fix. Sometimes the answer is “your router has been in that cabinet since 2017.” The diagnostic asks five questions and honestly tells you which one you have.
- Q · 01Why does Netflix buffer at 7pm?
Cable bufferbloat + peak-hour neighborhood contention. Sometimes the answer is fiber. Sometimes it's not.
Diagnose → - Q · 02Why is my upload so much slower than my download?
Cable was designed for downloads. Your 1 Gbps plan probably ships with ~35 Mbps upload — that's the bottleneck.
Diagnose → - Q · 03Why does my Wi-Fi feel slower than the speed test?
Almost certainly the router itself — placement, age, or 2.4 GHz interference. We'll tell you for sure.
Diagnose →
From your Wi-Fi router to the cable on the ocean floor.
Your packet crosses eight stops between your laptop and a server in another continent — most of them passive glass. Tap any stop to dive in.
- HOMhomeYour home
ONT turns light into Ethernet.
- DROdropDrop & feeder
Passive glass from your house to the splitter.
- SPLsplitterSplitter
1 fiber broadcast to 32 homes.
- COcoCentral office
Where light first meets a computer.
- IXPixpPeering edge
Where networks shake hands.
- BACbackboneBackbone
80,000 networks agreeing to talk.
- OCEoceanSubmarine cable
Garden-hose-sized cables on the sea floor.
- EDGedgeEdge / CDN
Netflix is probably inside your ISP.
The honest comparisons.
Each comparison page leads with a side-by-side table of real 2026 numbers — DOCSIS 4.0 vs XGS-PON, Starlink vs fiber latency, T-Mobile Home deprioritization rules.
The receipts.
Every quantitative claim on this site is sourced. These are the primary documents we cite — standards bodies, federal regulators, and independent measurement firms.
- FCC · 2024Internet Access Services, December 2024
Official US broadband subscriber breakdown. DSL is 6.6% of connections and falling fast.
Open source ↗ - OpenVault · 2025Broadband Insights — Q4 2025
Average US household used 711.4 GB/month — works out to under 50 Mbps peak.
Open source ↗ - Ookla · 2026Speedtest Global Index
US median fixed broadband: 306 Mbps down / 55+ Mbps up as of January 2026.
Open source ↗ - ITU-T · 2008ITU-T G.984 — Gigabit-capable PON
The GPON standard. 2.488 Gbps down / 1.244 Gbps up, 1490 nm / 1310 nm wavelengths.
Open source ↗ - ITU-T · 2016ITU-T G.9807.1 — XGS-PON
10 Gbps symmetric PON on 1577 nm / 1270 nm. Coexists with legacy GPON on the same fiber.
Open source ↗ - CableLabs · 2024DOCSIS 4.0 specification
Cable's catch-up answer to fiber: 10 Gbps down, 6 Gbps up, spectrum extended to 1.8 GHz.
Open source ↗ - TeleGeography · 2026Submarine Cable Map
552+ active submarine cables carry roughly 99% of intercontinental internet traffic.
Open source ↗ - Geoff Huston / APNIC · 2026BGP Routing Table Analysis
~950k IPv4 + ~200k IPv6 prefixes carried across roughly 80,000 active autonomous systems.
Open source ↗
The average US household uses 711.4 GB per month. That works out to under 50 Mbps peak. Almost no one needs multi-gig.
The internet is enormous and almost entirely invisible.
Or just take the quiz first.
The quiz takes 60 seconds and ends with provider recommendations for your ZIP. The field guide takes 30 minutes and ends with you understanding the internet better than your ISP's sales rep.