AT&T Internet Speed Tiers

A NOTE:
This article has been updated to reflect the latest speeds offered by AT&T Fiber Internet service which today are up to 5Gbps.

Internet service has evolved from dial-up, over DSL and cable, to a fiber based Internet service. All of these advancements were followed by an increase in speeds of Internet connections in users’ homes. There are wireless options as well, but this time we’ll focus onto wired options as that is what people order when getting Internet into their homes.

AT&T Internet Service

At this time, AT&T Internet offers speeds starting at 300Mbps and going up to 5000Gbps (5 Gigabit per second). Please remember that all Internet speed packages are described as “up to” while guaranteed speeds are lower than that.
For example, if you subscribe to a package that provides speeds of up to 500Mbps (500 Megabits per second), at times, you may experience speeds of 400Mbps. AT&T support should be contacted if a user believes the speed should be better.
One of the ways to test the speed of home Internet connection is to use AT&T Internet Speed Test. This test will measure both download and upload speeds, as well as latency, a factor that could influence the speed of Internet connection in your area.

AT&T Internet Service Speed Tiers

While AT&T provides numerous packages and speeds, we’ll stick to their main packages that are mostly offered in areas of AT&T’s Internet service. Until some years ago, the high speed Internet service form AT&T was called AT&T U-verse Internet. Just recently it has been renamed to simply AT&T Internet or AT&T Fiber.

The speeds offered by AT&T Internet line up as this:

• Internet 50 – Fiber to premises Internet service with the speed of up to 50 megabits per second. Upload speed is up to 10Mbps.
• Internet 75 – Fiber to premises Internet service with the speed of up to 75 megabits per second. Upload speed is up to 20Mbps.
• Internet 100 – Fiber to premises Internet service with the speed of up to 100 megabits per second. Upload speed is up to 20Mbps.
• Internet 300 Mbps – 100% fiber based Internet service. Download and upload and speeds are symmetrical, up to 300Mbps.
• Internet 500 Mbps – 100% fiber based Internet service. Download and upload and speeds are symmetrical, up to 500Mbps.
• Internet 1 GIG – 100% fiber based Internet service with the speed of up to 1000 megabits per second. This is often called gigabit Internet, regardless of the provider as 1000 megabits equal 1 gigabit. Download and upload and speeds are symmetrical, up to 1000Mbps.
• Internet 2 GIG – 100% fiber based Internet service with the speed of up to 2000 megabits per second. Download and upload speeds are symmetrical, up to 2000Mbps (2Gbps).
• Internet 5 GIG – 100% fiber based Internet service with the speed of up to 5000 megabits per second. Download and upload speeds are symmetrical. The real usable download speed is up to 4.7Gbps as the rest is an overhead capacity reserved to deliver the data. In order to achieve that speed, you must have an appropriate wired connection between the 5Gb port of the Wi-Fi gateway and a device capable of receiving the maximum speed. In other configurations, the speed will be distributed to all the connected devices using wired or Wi-Fi connections to the gateway.

The AT&T Internet speeds described as up to should not be taken as that an Internet provider seeks for some sort of safety for itself, as often this depends on factors including site traffic, content provider server capacity, internal network management factors, and end user device capabilities.

As shown above, upload speeds differ a lot between “fiber to premises” and “100% fiber” types of Internet services. The first one delivers lower upload speeds when they’re compared to download speeds. The second one is symmetrical, that is, download and upload speeds are equalized.

Learn more about AT&T Internet Service speeds and prices.