Phillips County is genuinely hard to serve. 11.2% of locations here have no fixed broadband at all, so for a lot of addresses the real choice is satellite or a cellular home-internet gateway, not a wired provider.
Everything below comes from the FCC's Broadband Data Collection, the filings providers are legally required to make about where they offer service. It describes the county; your own address can differ, and that is exactly why the technology mix matters.
Where Phillips County sits in Arkansas
Share of addresses with no fixed broadband at 25/3 Mbps
0.0% to 2.0%
2.0% to 4.2%
4.2% to 5.9%
5.9% to 10%
10% to 14%
14% to 20%
20% and above
not published
This county is outlined. Darker means a larger share of addresses with no fixed broadband. Select any county to open it.
What reaches homes in Phillips County
Locations covered by each technology, out of 9,352 broadband serviceable locations. An address can be reached by more than one technology, so these add up to more than 100%.
Fiber719 · 7.7%
Cable7,096 · 76%
Licensed fixed wireless4,034 · 43%
Unlicensed fixed wireless0 · 0.0%
DSL over copper109 · 1.2%
Served, underserved, unserved
The FCC's three categories. "Served" means at least 100/20 Mbps is available; "underserved" means at least 25/3 but below 100/20; "unserved" means below 25/3 or nothing at all.
Category
Locations
Share of county
Served
7,866
84.1%
Underserved
434
4.6%
Unserved
1,052
11.2%
What that means if you live here
The USDA classes Phillips County as a nonmetro county with an urban population of 5,000 to 20,000, not adjacent to a metro area (continuum code 7).
Population is around 15,906, which works out to about 1.7 people for every address on the list.
1,052 locations, 11.2% of the county, have nothing that reaches 25/3 Mbps.
A further 4.6% of the county sits in the middle: served, but below the 100/20 Mbps mark.
The most widely available technology here is cable, reaching 7,096 locations (75.9%); next is licensed fixed wireless at 43.1%.
Fiber reaches 719 locations, 7.7% of the county.
Licensed fixed wireless covers 43.1% of the county. It does not reach as far as cable does here, but it reaches places cable does not.
Cable reaches 75.9% of locations, more than fiber does, and it will be concentrated in the built-up parts of the county.
12 providers file coverage in Phillips County: 2 with fiber, 1 with cable, 4 with licensed fixed wireless.
In twelve months fiber went from 539 locations to 719 here.
Served locations rose 0.49% year on year.
Phillips County is harder-served than the typical Arkansas county, where the median unserved share is 5.3%.
Fiber lags the rest of Arkansas, where the median county is at 72.5%.
What people actually measure in Arkansas
Median of real speed tests run on each network during 2024, from M-Lab. This is measured performance, not an advertised plan speed, and not a customer review. The middle-half column shows how consistent a network is: a wide spread means your experience depends heavily on where and when.
Network
Median download
Middle half of tests
Median upload
Latency
Tests
AT&T Enterprises
68.4 Mbps
17.5 Mbps to 261 Mbps
31.7 Mbps
21 ms
30,137
Cox Communications
121 Mbps
50.7 Mbps to 295 Mbps
11.8 Mbps
23 ms
27,984
Verizon Business
27.2 Mbps
6.7 Mbps to 68.5 Mbps
4.8 Mbps
46 ms
16,785
Optimum
105 Mbps
46.3 Mbps to 223 Mbps
14.4 Mbps
40 ms
14,268
Comcast Cable Communications
121 Mbps
50.8 Mbps to 291 Mbps
21.0 Mbps
13 ms
13,174
Ritter Communications
97.8 Mbps
44.2 Mbps to 193 Mbps
47.7 Mbps
25 ms
8,440
Windstream Communications
46.5 Mbps
14.9 Mbps to 125 Mbps
23.0 Mbps
24 ms
6,514
Brightspeed
10.6 Mbps
3.9 Mbps to 30.1 Mbps
0.9 Mbps
35 ms
4,992
Connect 2 First Internet
223 Mbps
94.2 Mbps to 409 Mbps
110 Mbps
12 ms
4,803
Cablelynx
91.1 Mbps
40.1 Mbps to 172 Mbps
15.5 Mbps
30 ms
4,785
Latency is the number that decides whether video calls and gaming feel right, and it is where satellite differs most from everything else. Measured data is statewide: below county level there are usually too few tests to report an honest number.
Disclosure: some links on this page are affiliate links. If you sign up for a service or buy equipment through one, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. It never changes which options we list or the order we rank them in, and we do not accept payment for a better placement.
Your realistic options in Phillips County
Satellite
Starlink
Low-earth-orbit satellite. Latency is low enough for video calls and most gaming, unlike older satellite services.
Best for
Anywhere with a clear view of the sky and no wired option
Watch out
Hardware costs money up front, and heavy tree cover or a north-facing obstruction will cost you throughput