About Fiber Picks

Fiber Picks covers home internet options for remote workers and small-business owners in mid-size metros: the markets where three or four providers technically reach your block but delivered performance at a specific address can vary in ways no availability map captures.

The site grew out of a 2018 Chicago-to-Kansas-City move that put every ISP category on the table at once. Fiber from the local utility, two cable providers across two addresses, a stretch on DSL during a service gap, and satellite when nothing else reached the second address in time. Each one got logged. Each comparison here includes speed readings by time of day, notes from the install appointment, and a plan-versus-actual-bill breakdown.

The promo rate that looks reasonable in September rarely survives month 13 unchanged. The upload speed that sags every weekday between 5 and 7 PM. The billing line item that appears without explanation in month four. Those details are harder to surface than headline speeds and more relevant to anyone whose job depends on a reliable connection.

Coverage decisions follow one question: does the reader end up with enough real-world data to avoid the most common traps before signing? The FCC Broadband Map and BroadbandNow are referenced when coverage claims need a sanity check against what providers actually pass at a given address.

The person behind this site is on the author page.

Some links here are affiliate links. If you sign up for an internet plan after clicking through, the ISP pays me a small referral fee. You pay nothing extra, and the comparison list does not change because of it. I only cover providers I have personally signed up for or that someone close to me currently runs on.