And in Idaho, it comparatively is.
HighSpeedInternet.com, a website used by individuals to test their internet speed and compare providers, recently published findings on internet speed in all 50 states, and Idaho was ranked at the bottom.
With the slowest internet speed in the nation, Idaho has an average download speed of 124.57 megabits per second — 41% lower than the national average, the site says. The state with the fastest internet, Delaware, has an average speed of 246.95 Mbps.
The industry download speed standard for internet service is 100 Mbps, according to Ramón Hobdey-Sanchez, the director of Idaho’s Office of Broadband, a department that aims to expand broadband connections throughout the state.
“Although it’s slow speeds compared nationally, it’s still above the bare minimum,” Hobdey-Sanchez told the Idaho Statesman by phone.
The problem is mostly in rural areas. Internet speeds there are much slower because of a lack of high-speed fiber-optic cables and cell towers, according to Hobdey-Sanches.
“When you look at broadband in Idaho, it’s not so much about the challenges existing with our current infrastructure,” Hobdey-Sanchez said. “It’s really about the challenges existing where we don’t have any infrastructure.”
BLAME IDAHO’S LOW POPULATION DENSITY, TERRAIN
The policy and infrastructure editor at HighSpeedInternet.com, Peter Christiansen, attributes the lack of infrastructure to Idaho’s low population density and rugged terrain.
According to Christiansen, internet service providers looking to build internet infrastructure take into account the profit they will make. In Idaho, providers don’t make as much as they would in other states because rural customers are few and far apart
Also, building internet infrastructure requires a provider to have permission to either dig utility trenches or use the existing utility poles— if there are any.
“When you get out here (in the) West… It just makes it a lot more difficult when all of our population and residents are spread out so far,” Hobdey-Sanchez said.
But change could come soon. The federal government is helping.
The Capital Projects Fund, a federal program created by the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, allocated $128.5 million to Idaho to expand broadband. The Legislature approved the spending of the funds in 2023. They are paying for 18 not-yet-finished projects to connect 35,000 homes and businesses to the internet, according to Hobdey-Sanchez.
Among the beneficiaries are rural areas of a North Idaho county. According to the Latah County Broadband Coalition, only 20% of the households in rural areas have any access to internet, and the rest have download speeds of less than 10 Mbps. Soon, fiber internet will be available to more residents of the county at higher speeds.
An even bigger program is the Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment Program, created in 2021 when Congress passed the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. It prioritizes broadband expansion in communities that either don’t have access to the internet at all or have internet that is not high-speed.
The program allocated $583 million to Idaho, and the state then prepared a five-year broadband development plan that aims to provide all of Idaho with high-speed broadband with download speeds of at least 100 Mbps by 2027.
But while of the Capital Projects Fund projects must be completed by Dec. 31, 2026, according to Hobley-Sanchez, the broadband-equity program isn’t even taking applications yet. He said the application period will open in July and projects selected by Sept. 4.
2 COMPANIES PROVIDE FASTER INTERNET IN MT THAN ID
Montana and Idaho share two major internet service providers, Spectrum and TDS Telecom. But in Montana, the providers advertise faster internet rates than in Idaho, and the state overall ranks higher in download speeds.
“Montana’s seeing faster fiber rollouts than Idaho, largely due to aggressive investments from ISPs like TDS Telecom,” Sage Singleton, HighSpeedInternet.com’s media relations manager, told the Idaho Statesman by email. “In Montana, TDS is building out fiber to over 150,000 homes across major cities, while Idaho’s deployments are smaller and still scaling,”
While rural areas are worse off, Boise-area internet speeds are nothing to brag about. The average download speed in Boise is 131.57 Mbps, 12th in the state and just seven megabytes above the state average. The city with the fastest download speed is Coeur d’Alene at 191.18 Mbps.
The HighSpeedInternet.com data shows that 87% of people consider internet access as essential as water and electricity, and with the rise of remote work and schooling, internet access is increasingly crucial to Idahoans.
“Broadband and internet access are just key and critical to economic development,” Hobdey-Sanchez said. “We want to make sure that the folks in rural Idaho have the same opportunities, whether it’s education or work.”
On Monday, the Idaho Broadband Advisory Board is scheduled to meet to discuss next steps for this broadband implementation.
Christiansen says government efforts will help rural Idaho’s economy, but employer practices can help too.
“Tech-friendly policies, remote-worker-friendly policies, things like that can kind of give sort of an indirect boost to internet infrastructure,” he said.
© 2025 The Idaho Statesman. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
