With very little fiber internet available in the Land of Enchantment, most residents will choose between cable or DSL. Here are the state’s best options.
Xfinity is the best internet service provider overall for most New Mexico households because of its fast speeds and wide coverage. That being said, Xfinity service isn’t available everywhere in New Mexico, so CenturyLink, T-Mobile Home Internet or Verizon 5G Home Internet are also solid picks, depending on what’s available in your area.
If you’re hunting for the lowest prices or fastest speeds, we’ve also got those top options. The cheapest internet in New Mexico is Xfinity’s 75 megabits per second connection for $20 a month. The fastest internet speed in New Mexico is Xfinity’s 1,200Mbps plan in places like Albuquerque, Santa Fe and Los Alamos. There are more ISPs in New Mexico than we’ve covered here. If you’re in a rural area with few options, look for a local ISP that may service your home.
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Best internet in New Mexico
Speed range
75 – 2,000Mbps
Price range
$20 – $120 per month
Our take – Choosing the best internet provider in New Mexico is a tall order due to the patchwork availability of ISPs, a lack of fiber options and the state’s large stretches of rural areas. Xfinity offers superior speeds compared to competitor CenturyLink, but it doesn’t have as wide a reach across the state. With a variety of plan options starting at $20 per month, it’s worthy of consideration if it reaches your address.
Our take – CenturyLink has the widest availability of any wired ISP in the Land of Enchantment. That’s the good news. The bad news is that CenturyLink’s broad coverage comes from the ISP’s outdated and slow DSL network. There are some small pockets of CenturyLink’s sibling service, Quantum Fiber, but it’s hard to find.
Our take – Many residents are faced with few wired internet options. If you’re unhappy with your local cable company and don’t want to go with CenturyLink DSL, check into a 5G home internet provider. T-Mobile tends to have more open slots for new customers than Verizon, but both are worth looking into.
Our take – Rio Rancho is next to Albuquerque, but the city has a slightly different internet landscape. Xfinity plans to come to town, but the main competitors are CenturyLink and cable ISP Sparklight. Sparklight’s speed options make it a top choice for Rio Rancho residents.
Black Mesa Wireless: Rural residents of the Espanola Valley in northern New Mexico can check in with fixed wireless ISP Black Mesa. Download speeds range from 5Mbps to 40Mbps, with prices from $55 a month to $150 monthly. There are no contracts.
DesertGate Internet: DesertGate is a fixed wireless ISP covering the northern New Mexico counties of San Miguel and Mora. Plans start at $30 a month and require a one-year contract.
JackRabbit Wireless: JackRabbit offers fixed wireless across the southeast corner of New Mexico. Plans start at $65 a month for 100Mbps and go up to $105 monthly for 500Mbps. There are no contracts or data caps, and equipment is included.
Leaco: Leaco services parts of Dexter, Hagerman, Hobbs, Lovington, Tatum and Eunice with fiber, fixed wireless and DSL. Customers in the fiber service areas of Hobbs and Lovington can access speeds up to a gig. There are no contracts with a fiber plan, but you’ll need to check in with Leaco about availability and pricing.
NMSurf: Fixed wireless ISP NMSurf has a broad coverage area, including regions around Albuquerque, Las Vegas, Cedar Crest and Santa Fe. Plans start at $40 a month for 25Mbps and top out at $50 for 100Mbps with a two-year contract. There’s a one-year contract option, or you can go month to month. You can lease equipment or buy it outright.
Plateau: Originally the Eastern New Mexico Rural Telephone Cooperative, Plateau offers fiber ranging from $60 a month for a 100Mbps plan to $80 monthly for gig service. The ISP covers parts of Belen, Carlsbad, Clovis, Edgewood, Estancia, Las Vegas, Los Lunas, Moriarty, Mountainair, Roswell and Tucumcari. You can get the $99 installation fee waived if you agree to a one-year contract. Equipment fees vary. Plateau also has DSL and fixed wireless options if you’re not in a fiber service area.
Sacred Wind Communications: Sacred Wind is focused on reaching rural tribal residents. The fixed wireless ISP covers large parts of the Navajo Nation and some areas of Gallup. It has also been expanding into fiber coverage. Fixed wireless speeds range from 15 to 100Mbps for $75 to $120 monthly.
Daniela Duncan/Getty Images
Internet breakdown by city in New Mexico
It’s hard to cover the broadband options of a state like New Mexico and give individual cities the attention they deserve. That’s why we also compile lists of the best internet providers in cities across the US, including those in New Mexico. We tackle details such as internet connection types, max speeds, cheapest providers and more. Check back later if you don’t find the city you’re looking for below. We’re working to add more cities every week.
Most ISPs kick off their New Mexico plans at around $40 to $50. There aren’t a lot of bargain basement internet plans in the state but look to Xfinity’s 75Mbps plan for $20 per month as one of the cheapest options. It’s an even better deal if you have your own equipment and can skip the $15-a-month gear rental. Just be ready for the price to increase once your introductory period expires. Verizon and T-Mobile offer good discounts on home internet when you bundle with an eligible phone plan. Low-income households should check their eligibility for the federal Affordable Connectivity Program for free or cheap internet options.
How to find internet deals and promotions in New Mexico
The best internet deals and top promotions in New Mexico depend on what discounts are available during that time. Most deals are short-lived, but we look frequently for the latest offers.
New Mexico internet providers, such as Xfinity, may offer lower introductory pricing or streaming add-ons for a limited time. Many, however, including CenturyLink, T-Mobile Home Internet and Verizon 5G Home Internet, tend to run the same standard pricing year-round.
For a more extensive list of promos, check out our guide on the best internet deals.
How fast is New Mexico broadband?
New Mexico didn’t fare well in a recent Ookla Speedtest.net ranking of state internet speeds. The Land of Enchantment landed in the 47th position with a median download speed of 116Mbps. Compare that to top-ranked Florida at 240Mbps. Albuquerque, the state’s most populous city, logged a median fixed internet download speed of 190Mbps. Xfinity is the city’s fastest ISP. Speed test results can swing quite a bit depending on technology, internet equipment and network congestion, so your results may vary.
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 video 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.
0 to 5Mbps allows you to tackle the basics — browsing the internet, sending and receiving email, streaming low-quality video.
5 to 40Mbps gives you higher-quality video streaming and videoconferencing.
40 to 100Mbps should give one person 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 New Mexico
Internet service providers are numerous and regional. Unlike the latest smartphone, laptop, router or kitchen tool, it’s impractical to personally test every internet service provider in a given city. So what’s our approach? For starters, we tap into a proprietary database of pricing, availability and speed information that draws from our own historical ISP data, partner data and mapping information from the Federal Communications Commission at FCC.gov.
But 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:
Does the provider offer access to reasonably fast internet speeds?
Do customers get decent value for what they’re paying?
Are customers happy with their service?
While the answer to those questions is often layered and complex, 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, though 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 Ookla and FCC reports.
To explore our process in more depth, visit our how we test ISPs page.
What’s the final word on internet providers in New Mexico?
New Mexico can be a tricky place for broadband. Fiber is desirable but hard to find. That leaves most of the state weighing cable, DSL or fixed wireless options. Many rural areas are underserved. Of the widest spread ISPs, Xfinity offers the top speed with its 1,200Mbps plan. If you’re lucky enough to live within Quantum Fiber’s small footprint, that’s a much better option than the slower, more ubiquitous DSL. The state’s broadband landscape could receive a shakeup soon as fiber provider Vexus expands into Albuquerque, but rollout may be slow. Overall, New Mexico has a lot of room to improve its internet offerings.
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