Best Internet Providers in St. Charles, Missouri

What’s the best internet provider in St. Charles?

Located in one of the fastest-growing counties in Missouri, it should come as no surprise that St. Charles residents have access to plenty of top providers for high-speed, competitive internet. AT&T Fiber is the best internet provider in St. Charles, thanks to its widespread availability in the city, fast speeds, reasonable prices, high customer satisfaction and other perks like a prepaid Visa card and waived fees. Plus, AT&T Fiber boasts some of the fastest speeds in the city, maxing out at 5,000 megabits per second. 

i3 Broadband, a local fiber internet provider, is the cheapest and fastest internet provider in St. Charles. While i3 Broadband initially began as a dial-up internet service, it has since grown to be own of the fastest and most competitively priced fiber internet providers in Illinois, with small footprints in Missouri and Rhode Island. The speeds you can get with i3 Broadband max out at 8,000Mbps — beating out national competitor AT&T Fiber. i3 Broadband also offers the cheapest plan in the area for $25 a month.

Most other internet providers in the city start their plans at $50 a month, but i3 Broadband offers tiers at $25 for 300Mbps and $30 for 100Mbps. Just keep in mind those prices will get higher after one year. Alternatively, bundling your internet plan with a qualifying mobile or TV plan — like T-Mobile Home Internet, Verizon 5G or Spectrum — can help lower your monthly bill. . 

Let’s take a closer look at what some of these internet providers have to offer St. Charles.

Source: CNET analysis of provider data.

What’s the cheapest internet provider in St. Charles?

Source: CNET analysis of provider data.

How to find internet deals and promotions in St. Charles

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

St. Charles internet providers, like Verizon 5G Home Internet and Spectrum, may offer lower introductory pricing or streaming add-ons for a limited time. Others, including T-Mobile Home Internet, run the same standard pricing year-round. 

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

Fastest internet plans in St. Charles

Source: CNET analysis of provider data.

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 videoconferencing, streaming in 4K 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 in-depth breakdown, refer to CNET’s 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 videoconferencing.
• 40 to 100Mbps should give one perosn sufficient bandwidth to satisfy the demands of modern telecommuting, video streaming and online gaming. 
• 100 to 500Mbps allows one to two people to simultaneously engage in high-bandwidth activities like videoconferencing, streaming and online gaming. 
• 500 to 1,000Mbps allows three or more people to engage in high-bandwidth activities at the same time.

How CNET chose the best internet providers in St. Charles, Missouri

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? For starters, we tap into a proprietary pricing, availability and speed database that draws from our own historical ISP data, partner data 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:

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 answer to those questions is often layered and complex, but the providers who 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 the FCC and Ookla. (Ookla is owned by the same parent company as CNET, Ziff Davis.)

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

Internet providers in St. Charles FAQs