There’s paying a lot. And then there’s paying a lot for something that barely works when you need it.
In Wyoming, the average person gives up about an hour and 25 minutes of their monthly working time just to cover a standard home internet bill. For that, they get download speeds that don’t even reach 110 Mbps. On paper, that number might not seem terrible. But if you’ve tried joining a Zoom call while someone else in the house is streaming or uploading files, you’ll notice just how quickly that speed starts to fall apart.
Montana’s not far behind. Slightly faster speeds, but nearly the same hit to your paycheck. Alaska’s situation feels familiar, more remote geography, similar results. None of this is new, but when a research group from Spinblitz laid the numbers out side by side — local wages, cost of service, and actual internet speed — the pattern wasn’t subtle.
In the bottom 10 states for internet value, most are rural, many are lower-income, and all of them are handing over too much time or money (often both) for lackluster service. In Iowa, it’s over an hour and a half of wages for a connection that doesn’t quite break 165 Mbps. In South Dakota, you get more speed, close to 190 Mbps, but still lose 1.6 hours of labor just paying for it.
And then there’s Idaho. Less than an hour of work a month, which is better. But when the speed hovers around 140 Mbps, it’s not quite the bargain it looks like at first glance.
New Mexico’s somewhere in the middle. Speeds aren’t the worst, cost’s not the highest. But it's still sitting in the same awkward group, states where you’re overpaying, one way or another.
Some states, Maine, West Virginia, Arkansas, don’t suffer from the absolute slowest speeds, but the cost-to-speed ratio keeps them stuck near the bottom of the value list. The math shifts slightly state by state, but the equation rarely balances out.
There’s something especially frustrating about the fact that in many of these places, digital infrastructure has been promised, delayed, and debated for years. And while it’s true that stringing fiber across hundreds of miles of remote land costs more than wiring up cities, the end result is the same: folks in less-populated states are shelling out more time just to keep up with the rest.
The issue goes beyond monthly bills and download speeds. At its heart, it’s about whether people can realistically stay connected, to their jobs, their education, their healthcare, without falling behind for reasons that shouldn’t be this common. In many parts of the country, that’s still far from guaranteed.
A full list of states ranked by how much they pay for internet, from high prices and poor service to fair costs and fast speeds.
Methodology: The study ranks US states by comparing internet speed, monthly cost, and local wages to find where people pay the most for the least. Affordability was measured by how much of a person’s wage goes toward their internet bill. Value came from dividing speed by that affordability score.
Read next: Crypto Search Surge Places New York at the Forefront of U.S. Digital Currency Interest
In Wyoming, the average person gives up about an hour and 25 minutes of their monthly working time just to cover a standard home internet bill. For that, they get download speeds that don’t even reach 110 Mbps. On paper, that number might not seem terrible. But if you’ve tried joining a Zoom call while someone else in the house is streaming or uploading files, you’ll notice just how quickly that speed starts to fall apart.
Montana’s not far behind. Slightly faster speeds, but nearly the same hit to your paycheck. Alaska’s situation feels familiar, more remote geography, similar results. None of this is new, but when a research group from Spinblitz laid the numbers out side by side — local wages, cost of service, and actual internet speed — the pattern wasn’t subtle.
In the bottom 10 states for internet value, most are rural, many are lower-income, and all of them are handing over too much time or money (often both) for lackluster service. In Iowa, it’s over an hour and a half of wages for a connection that doesn’t quite break 165 Mbps. In South Dakota, you get more speed, close to 190 Mbps, but still lose 1.6 hours of labor just paying for it.
And then there’s Idaho. Less than an hour of work a month, which is better. But when the speed hovers around 140 Mbps, it’s not quite the bargain it looks like at first glance.
New Mexico’s somewhere in the middle. Speeds aren’t the worst, cost’s not the highest. But it's still sitting in the same awkward group, states where you’re overpaying, one way or another.
Some states, Maine, West Virginia, Arkansas, don’t suffer from the absolute slowest speeds, but the cost-to-speed ratio keeps them stuck near the bottom of the value list. The math shifts slightly state by state, but the equation rarely balances out.
There’s something especially frustrating about the fact that in many of these places, digital infrastructure has been promised, delayed, and debated for years. And while it’s true that stringing fiber across hundreds of miles of remote land costs more than wiring up cities, the end result is the same: folks in less-populated states are shelling out more time just to keep up with the rest.
The issue goes beyond monthly bills and download speeds. At its heart, it’s about whether people can realistically stay connected, to their jobs, their education, their healthcare, without falling behind for reasons that shouldn’t be this common. In many parts of the country, that’s still far from guaranteed.
A full list of states ranked by how much they pay for internet, from high prices and poor service to fair costs and fast speeds.
| State | Median Download Mbps | Internet Value Index | Affordability (hours of work needed to pay for internet) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wyoming | 105.23 | 73.9 | 1.42 |
| Montana | 111.16 | 80.9 | 1.37 |
| Alaska | 119.52 | 90 | 1.33 |
| Iowa | 162.19 | 100.4 | 1.62 |
| South Dakota | 189.22 | 117.9 | 1.6 |
| New Mexico | 125.74 | 122.3 | 1.03 |
| West Virginia | 171.87 | 135.1 | 1.27 |
| Maine | 200.39 | 143.5 | 1.4 |
| Arkansas | 158.51 | 158.2 | 1 |
| Idaho | 140.68 | 159.6 | 0.88 |
| Mississippi | 177.39 | 167 | 1.06 |
| Vermont | 142.46 | 167.1 | 0.85 |
| Wisconsin | 201.29 | 172.4 | 1.17 |
| Kentucky | 210.34 | 181.4 | 1.16 |
| Alabama | 208.64 | 186.2 | 1.12 |
| Hawaii | 225.93 | 189 | 1.2 |
| Georgia | 188.13 | 213.5 | 0.88 |
| Indiana | 201 | 214.9 | 0.94 |
| Illinois | 187.39 | 218.7 | 0.86 |
| North Carolina | 231.41 | 222.1 | 1.04 |
| New Jersey | 234 | 222.2 | 1.05 |
| Pennsylvania | 205.02 | 223.2 | 0.92 |
| Michigan | 201.51 | 223.7 | 0.9 |
| California | 226.89 | 232.2 | 0.98 |
| Minnesota | 183.47 | 233.9 | 0.78 |
| Tennessee | 230.27 | 236 | 0.98 |
| Oregon | 195.65 | 238.6 | 0.82 |
| North Dakota | 210.37 | 239.7 | 0.88 |
| Utah | 213.17 | 250 | 0.85 |
| Connecticut | 244.23 | 251.2 | 0.97 |
| Delaware | 237.42 | 257.5 | 0.92 |
| Texas | 224.77 | 258.4 | 0.87 |
| Colorado | 199.92 | 261.2 | 0.77 |
| Washington | 188.77 | 263.1 | 0.72 |
| Maryland | 226.61 | 270.9 | 0.84 |
| Florida | 238.3 | 273.1 | 0.87 |
| New Hampshire | 234.5 | 277.9 | 0.84 |
| South Carolina | 224.52 | 287.8 | 0.78 |
| Ohio | 216.68 | 288.1 | 0.75 |
| Oklahoma | 188.31 | 288.6 | 0.65 |
| Louisiana | 198.44 | 289.4 | 0.69 |
| New York | 226.13 | 291.8 | 0.77 |
| Massachusetts | 225.76 | 319.8 | 0.71 |
| Nebraska | 199.43 | 326.8 | 0.61 |
| Kansas | 210.49 | 331.6 | 0.63 |
| Missouri | 207.74 | 337.1 | 0.62 |
| Arizona | 199.23 | 345.5 | 0.58 |
| Nevada | 228.69 | 362.7 | 0.63 |
| Virginia | 213.82 | 385.7 | 0.55 |
| Rhode Island | 257.48 | 463.6 | 0.56 |
Methodology: The study ranks US states by comparing internet speed, monthly cost, and local wages to find where people pay the most for the least. Affordability was measured by how much of a person’s wage goes toward their internet bill. Value came from dividing speed by that affordability score.
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