Best Internet Providers in Fresno, California

CNET’s top pick for the best internet provider in Fresno, California, is AT&T Fiber, offering reliable download and upload speeds at a reasonable monthly price. The downside, however, is that AT&T Fiber's coverage area doesn't include all of Fresno, so a significant share of residents still don't have access to it.

If you can't get AT&T Fiber at your address, look at Xfinity. It has some of the cheapest internet plans, starting at $35. Just watch out for price increases and extra fees. T-Mobile is another option that works well for small households with one or two people. Though the company also has options for larger families, such as T-Mobile’s $70 Home Internet Plus Plan.

Our team looks at speed, pricing, customer service and overall value to recommend the best internet service. We use a special database that we've built over years of reviewing internet services. To ensure accuracy, we check if the service is available at local addresses, too. We also read the terms and conditions of providers carefully and, when needed, contact ISPs to confirm the details.

Our process has some limitations you should know about. Pricing and speed data are variable: Certain addresses may qualify for different service tiers, and monthly costs may vary, even within a city. The best way to identify your particular options is to plug your address into a provider's website. 

Note that the prices, speeds and other information listed above and in the provider cards below may differ from what we found in our research. The cards display the full range of a provider's pricing and speeds across the US, according to our database of plan information provided directly by ISPs. At the same time, the text is specific to what’s available in Fresno. The prices referenced within this article’s text come from our research and include applicable discounts for setting up automatic payments each month -- a standard industry offering. Other discounts and promotions might also be available for things like committing to a contract or bundling with a cellphone plan. 

To learn more about how we review internet providers, visit our full methodology page.

Top internet providers in Fresno

No matter where you live in Fresno, you’ll likely have access to some good internet options. AT&T Fiber is available to about a quarter of Fresno residents and offers the fastest speeds at fair prices. Those who can’t get AT&T Fiber have a good backup in Xfinity, which is available almost everywhere in the city.

Source: CNET analysis of provider data.

What other internet options are there in Fresno?

There are a few other internet providers operating in Fresno, but they typically have slower speeds and higher prices. Still, they’re worth considering in more rural areas.

• Kingsburg Media Foundation: This fixed wireless provider is only worth a look as a last resort. Plans start at $75 a month for just 10/5Mbps speeds -- a worse value than even satellite internet. The edge it has on satellite is that all of its plans come with unlimited data.  
• Satellite internet: In general, satellite internet is only used in rural areas where faster options aren’t available. You can get HughesNet and Viasat everywhere in Fresno, but speeds are low, prices are high and data caps are extremely stingy. Starlink is a newer provider from SpaceX that delivers faster speeds than HughesNet and Viasat, but it has an upfront equipment cost of $599, and plans start at $120 monthly.
• Verizon 5G Home Internet: Like T-Mobile Home Internet, Verizon has begun leveraging its own cellular network to deliver home internet wirelessly. It has two plans available in Fresno, with speeds up to 1,000Mbps at some addresses. That noted, availability is more limited than T-Mobile -- only 26% of Fresno households will be able to get Verizon.

Hal Bergman/Getty Images

Pricing info on Fresno home internet service

Fresno residents have some extremely cheap internet plans available -- and most of them are from one provider. Xfinity offers some of the cheapest starting prices you’ll find anywhere in the country, but you’ll have to take a close look at the fine print. By Year 3, you’ll be paying $79 for 300Mbps and $89 for 500Mbps.

Source: CNET analysis of provider data.

How fast is Fresno broadband?

Compared to other cities of its size, Fresno has an abundance of fast internet plans available. Three different providers offer “gig speeds” -- download speeds of 940Mbps or higher -- and AT&T Fiber offers symmetrical speeds up to 5,000Mbps in some areas. Currently only 46% of Fresno can get 1,000/100Mbps speeds, according to FCC data.

Source: CNET analysis of provider data.

What’s the final word on internet providers in Fresno?

For the portion of Fresno households that have access to AT&T Fiber, picking an internet provider is an easy decision. AT&T has symmetrical upload and download speeds, straightforward and reasonable pricing, and the best customer satisfaction scores of any provider in the country. Xfinity is a worthy backup option, but its pricing is complicated and your bill will increase significantly by Year 3. T-Mobile Home Internet maintains a guaranteed all-in price of $50 a month, but its speeds are best for households with just one or two people. 

How CNET chose the best internet providers in Fresno

Internet service providers are numerous and regional. Unlike the latest smartphone, laptop, router or kitchen tool, it's impractical to personally test every internet service provider in a given city. So what's our approach? For starters, we tap into a proprietary database of pricing, availability and speed information that draws from our own historical ISP data, partner data and mapping information from the Federal Communications Commission at FCC.gov. 

This guide leverages an in-house artificial intelligence tool called RAMP, which is trained on our own writing and uses our database to generate content about specific internet service providers that our writers can use in determining and presenting our picks for a given guide. Check CNET’s AI policy for more information about how our teams use (and don’t use) AI tools. 

Because our database is not exhaustive, we go to the FCC’s website to check the primary data for ourselves and make sure we’re considering every ISP that provides service in an area. Plans and prices also vary by location, so we input local addresses on provider websites to find the specific options available to residents. To evaluate how happy customers are with an ISP's service, we look at sources including the American Customer Satisfaction Index and J.D. Power. ISP plans and prices are subject to frequent changes; all information provided is accurate as of the time of our pre-publication fact-check.

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

1. Does the provider offer access to reasonably fast internet speeds? 
2. Do customers get decent value for what they're paying? 
3. 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. (Disclosure: Ookla is owned by the same parent company as CNET, Ziff Davis.)

Fresno internet FAQs