PCMag readers around the world spent months testing their Internet connection and the results are in. How does your service provider stack up?

When it comes to gauging the speed of your Internet connection, you can't always rely on what your Internet service provider tells you. It may say it's providing a certain level of servicesay 15 Megabits per second (Mbps) download speedbut the way your Netflix videos rebuffer and the time it takes to load web pages suggest otherwise. So who can you trust? We recommend you listen to your fellow readers of PCMag.com.

That's because they, and hopefully you, have been testing your connections for the last nine months using our proprietary link at http://PCMag.Speedtest.net.

Now we're ready to present the data collected during that time and pinpoint exactly what vendor has earned the title of fastest ISP. We break it down for you nationally, by regions of the country, and by city and state. We also received enough tests internationally to reveal the countries where our international readers enjoy the best download and upload speeds.

If the name Speedtest.net looks familiar, it should. Powered by Ookla, Speedtest.net is the de facto standard for testing Internet connection speed around the globe. It's so popular, with such a strong backbone, that many ISPs use it themselves when customers need help. This story, however, is specific to PCMag users, so we're only using the data collected since January 1, 2012 from our PCMag-branded version of the speed test.

In the pages that follow, you'll typically see ISPs listed with both a download speed and an upload speed; we used those numbers to generate an "index," a number calculated by taking 80 percent of the download speed and adding it to 20 percent of the upload speed. The index determines what we consider the Fastest ISPs for 2012.

The Fastest ISPs Nationwide

You may think cable providers supply the fastest Internet connection at home. That's only true if you can't get fiber to the home (FTTH), where a fiber optic line goes right to your house. FTTH is provided by one major player in the United States: Verizon FiOS. With our highest national index number at 26.8 for FiOS (based on an amazing 29.4Mbps down/16.7Mbps up combo), there's no doubt that Verizon FiOS is the fastest residential ISP in the country.

Who's at number two nationally? A regional ISP that didn't even make our across-the-country list last year (we need a minimum number of tests to be able to include an ISP): Midcontinent Communications. Also known as Midco, this cable provider to the northern plains (specifically Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wisconsin) claims it can deliver 100Mbps downloads with its MidcoNet Xstream Wideband service. While our testers didn't see quite that level of service, the average was 24.7Mbps down/4.4 Mbps up, giving it an index of 20.6, well ahead of everyone but Verizon FiOS.

Last year's big threeCox, Comcast, and Charterstill all reside in the top ten. Cox was the only one of the three to lose ground, as its index number slipped from 15.8 to 14.8. Comcast gained a couple points, rising from an index of 15.7 to 17.3. Charter, however, saw a very nice gain, going from index of 15.0 to 18.5 and making it the third fastest ISP in the nation this year among PCMag readers.



Speaking of fiber, what about AT&T? The company did not make the top 15. In fact, the fiber-based AT&T U-verse service got an index of 7.9, putting it at number 22. The hypothetical reason for this: U-verse is not FTTH, but more of a fiber-to-the-neighborhood (or node), so the fiber cable terminates at a junction box before going out via copper DSL lines to actual residences. That slows things on the connection, and is reflected in the tests.

FTTH is definitely preferable. The problem is that Verizon, the only national company providing it to homes in the United States, stopped expanding to new markets a couple of years ago, or at least past the planned footprint. The existing 13.7 million customers get new upgrades (like the new 300Mbps "Quantum" option for $205 a month) and while Verizon expects to grow to 18 million FiOS customers eventually, after that, if you don't have FiOS, you probably never will. Pray that your local ISP decides to get into the FTTH game.

WINNER: The Fastest ISP  Nationwide

Verizon FiOS

(29.4Mbps down/16.7Mbps up)

It's hard to imagine anyone ever beating FiOS (but we hope someone tries). Remember, that download number of 29.4Mbps is an average for all FiOS customers who took the test, so imagine just how high it could get, since Verizon offers a service pegged at 300Mbps.

The Fastest ISPs by Region

For the last couple of years, we've broken down the fastest ISPs into four regionsthe same way the U.S. Census does. This year, we're taking a cue from our story instead, which breaks the country into six sections (not including Alaska and Hawaii): North Central, Northeast, Northwest, South Central, Southeast, and Southwest.

Where you live is often the biggest factor when picking your ISP, as some areas don't offer much choice. In fact, in rural areas, broadband may be non-existent and reading an article like this might make those eager to plug into a cable network clench their teeth. Thankfully for those people, mobile networks continue to expand; even if they're not as fast as their fiber or cable counterparts, they're better than nothing. Meanwhile, for residential ISPs, here are the best you can get in certain sections of the country.

WINNERS: The Fastest ISPs  Regions

North Central

Includes: IA, IL, IN, KS, KY, MI, MN, MO, ND, NE, OH, SD, and WI



Midcontinent Communications

Setting the standard for what a local ISP can and should be, Midco's numbers rival Verizon FiOS's in its market. If you live in the Dakotas, Minnesota, or Wisconsin and are within reach of the MidcoNet Xstream Wideband service, do yourself a favor and sign up.

Northeast

Includes: CT, DC, DE, MA, MD, ME, NH, NJ, NY, PA, RI, VA, VT, and WV



Verizon FiOS

The Northeast is home to Verizon's headquarters, the world's first art deco skyscraper located in New York City. Its FTTH service pretty much spreads from Virginia up through New England. Get it if you can, but know that while cable providers like Optimum/Cablevision and Comcast can't touch FiOS upload speeds, they're edging ever closer to great downloads with speeds well over 20Mbps.

Northwest

Includes: CO, ID, MT, OR, UT, WA, and WY



Comcast Cable

Comcast, the country's largest cable provider, is the fastest ISP you can get in the Pacific Northwest, stretching down to Utah and east to Montana and Wyoming.

South Central

Includes: AR, LA, MS, OK, and TX



Verizon FiOS

There's no question that if you're in a Verizon FiOS area in the South Central, you should get it. Here we saw the fastest download speed (a blazing 32Mbps) FiOS showed in all our results.

Southeast

Includes: AL, FL, GA, NC, SC, and TN



Verizon FiOS

Verizon squeaked out a win in the Southeast because our index takes into account the FiOS upload speed.

Southwest

Includes: AZ, CA, NM, and NV



Verizon FiOS

Verizon FiOS's best upload speed in the nation (18.5Mbps up) and its second-best download speed are here in the Southwest. FTTH is more limited in its availability, but worth seeking out when it is, as usual.

The Fastest Business ISPs

In 2011, only a couple of business-oriented ISPs crept into our results, specifically Comcast Business Class and a Time Warner off-shoot, tw telecom.

Both are back this year with even better numbers, and with a lot more business competition, thanks to our readers who ran their Speedtest.net tests at work.

Comcast is again the leader in this area with an index of 23.8, up from 20.5 last year. That 23.8 index is also higher than the national index of 17.3 that Comcast got over allnot surprising, as businesses typically pay more for service and get a bigger pipe for traffic with that price.

Number two in the business area this year is Verizon Business. The tests for Verizon tagged as "corporate" don't quite live up to the speeds of residential Verizon FiOS, but that 22.1 index is nothing to be upset by.

Third in line is tw telecom, hanging in there with an index of 18.7, boosted by an upload speed that rivals that of Verizon Business.

It might seem like these numbers are a little weak compared with the national numbers for the residential ISPs, but keep in mind that reliability is paramount; these services are going to cost more but there's also more of a guaranteed up-time than the cable going to your house.

WINNER: The Fastest ISP  Business



Comcast Cable

Comcast's leading index of 23.8 is up from last year, and it's, once again, the business ISP of choice.

When it comes to U.S. cities and their ISPs, there are several ways to slice the data. Take a look at the cities with the fastest average ISP speed and you'll notice that not all of them are major metropolises.

Places like Alexandria, VA, (population: 139,966) and Plano, TX, (population: 269,776) are certainly big, but not exactly the size of New York. That probably goes a long way toward them having responsive, resilient local ISPs that can provide excellent service. Obviously, when the average download speed for a city is 52.2Mbps, like it is in Alexandra, VA, someone is doing something right. National ISPs in that area include Cox, Comcast, and Verizon FiOS.

What ISPs should those in the major metro areas turn to for the fastest Internet speeds? Here are some suggestions:

New York, NY: It's a wonderful town, and it also happens to have several ISP options. (Of course, not every option will be available in every borough.) The top of the line is Verizon FiOS with 35Mbps down/20.2Mbps up. Optimum Online and Road Runner are also good options. (New York ranks ninth on the list of cities with all tests aggregated.)

Los Angeles, CA: Road Runner, with 19Mbps down/3.4Mbps up, is the top option we saw for Angelenos. (Los Angeles is, sadly, number 53 on the list of cities with all tests aggregated.)

Philadelphia, PA: Comcast zooms into town with 29.7Mbps down/9.1Mbps up speeds. (Philly is number 38 on the list of cities.)

Houston, TX: You get a 20.7Mbps down/4.3Mbps up speed average if you go with Comcast Cable. (It's number 16 on the cities list.)

Chicago, IL: Comcast scores again, this time in the Windy City, with a breezy 23.6Mbps down/4.6Mbps up. (Overall for cities, it's just number 33.)

San Francisco, CA: You'd think the big city closest to Silicon Valley would have the fastest speeds going, but Comcast, the top performer, had a relatively slow 15.5Mbps down/5.2Mbps up. That results in an index number of 13.5, the slowest we saw among the "leading" ISPs in major cities. (In our list of cities aggregating all tests, San Francisco came in at number 35.)

(Note: If your favorite ISP in the above cities isn't listed, it's not necessarily because it's not fast; it could be that we didn't get the minimum number of tests required from people using that ISP in that city, which we need for an ISP to make the list. Be sure to tell us in the comments just how fast your local ISP truly is.)

The Fastest ISPs: The States

When we aggregated all the tests from PCMag.Speedtest.net by state, we had enough to rate every state except Alaska. Readers made up for that by performing enough tests to include the District of Columbia.

Which state has the fastest Internet speeds? That would be Delaware. However, it's only slightly ahead of New Hampshire and South Carolina, based on the index number assigned to each state; all three had an index number greater than 20.

Arguably, the state to avoid if you want a shot at a decent connection is Wyoming, which has a lowly index of 4. Even its northern neighbor, Montana, managed to get a 7.7. Yet the District of Columbia sits in between them with a paltry index of 6.5disappointing for the capital of the country.

As for individual ISPs per state, it's not surprising that Verizon FiOS turns up as the top performer in almost every state where it's available. FiOS is the fastest ISP tested in New York (index 29.7), Texas (29.2), California (28.4), New Jersey (28.0), Virginia (27.6), Massachusetts (27.2), Maryland (26.6), Pennsylvania (23.9), and Florida (21.5).

Despite scoring so high in the aggregate, Delaware's testers didn't complete enough tests with individual ISPs for us to determine which vendor is the fastest; same in New Hampshire. But in South Carolina, Charter leads ISPs statewide with a 22.7 index number.

Charter is also the top ISP in Tennessee (21.7), Minnesota (20.7), Alabama (20.1), Georgia (19.4), Illinois (19.0), North Carolina (19.0), Nevada (18.7), Wisconsin (17.9), Missouri (17.5), Michigan (17.3), Washington (16.9), and Oregon (12.4). Charter also gives FiOS a good run in California, Massachusetts and Texas, coming in second in all three states.

The Fastest ISPs Around the World

Technically, PCMag.com is U.S.-centric, but that didn't stop a few thousand people overseas from using PCMag.speedtest.net to test their local ISP. We collected enough data to generate a good look at exactly where the United States falls in comparison to the Internet speed around the world: we're number 15, with an average download speed of 15.3Mbps.

Number one on the globe is Hong Kong, the little slice of China that is somewhat independent enough to govern itself. Its index number of 45.4 is amazing, outstripping that of any single state in the U.S. In our tests, just the city of Alexandria, VA, returned enough tests to indicate it had faster connections than Hong Kong. Ookla's Net Index site also lists Hong Kong as the region with the fastest download speed (42Mbps).

The drop off after that is pretty severe as mostly European countries get recorded, with a couple of important Asian Internet spots (Singapore and Japan). Japan is number 11 with PCMag readers; it scores much higher on Net Index downloads.

Absent from PCMag tests are Lithuania and South Korea. They are number two and three, respectively, on the Net Index download speed list, just ahead of Singapore and Japan.

On the Net Index list, the United States ranks at number 34, with a download speed average of 15.1Mbps, on par with what PCMag readers found. Last year, the Unites States was number 29 on Net Index, but with a speed of 11.37Mbps down. So while our national Internet download speed has gone up, our placement dropped by five, meaning more countries are improving their Internet speeds faster than we are.

Methodology

The results in this article were taken from a total of 110,000 tests completed from January 1, 2012 to September 19, 2012 at http://pcmag.speedtest.net. Speedtest.net collected both download and upload speeds for each test, measured in Megabits per second (Mbps). We used those results to calculate an index score for a better one-to-one comparison, where downloads count for 80 percent and uploads 20 percent.

Speedtest.net requires only a Web browser running Adobe Flash 10 or higher and JavaScript to work. (Ookla, the maker of Speedtest.net, also offers mobile apps for iOS and Android, which did not factor into this story.) On the back end, Speedtest.net performs what's called a "fill the pipe" test. Rather than testing the upload and download speed of a single file, it uses multiple broadband threads (the broadband applications that can be used by a browser) to measure the total capacity of the "pipe." This leads to numbers that are higher than some other Internet speed tests out there, sometimes even higher than the rate of broadband speed you are paying for.

A note about PowerBoost: This is a marketing term used by Comcast, though other cable-based ISPs use similar technology. It ramps up the initial speed of a connection to faster than what it will sustain. For example, someone with a 20Mbps-rated Internet connection can find his or her initial connection jump up to 40 or 50Mbps, but only for a few seconds. It occurs on a per-transfer basis, and most Internet activity, especially Web browsing, sees a boost from it. It doesn't last long, though, and therefore doesn't impact long downloads or streaming much. Speedtest.net uses a blend of boosted and unboosted data to determine overall speed.

If you're interested in seeing even more data from Ookla, visit Net Index, its site that shows an easy-to-read report of every single Speetest.net test performed in the previous 12 months.

Thanks to Ben Gottesman for his contributions to this article.