LONGMONT – NextLight, Longmont’s community-owned broadband service, has been ranked by PC Magazine as the nation’s top internet service provider for gaming.

“Gamers who live within the fiber loop of Longmont, Colorado, are the ones to beat,” PCMag wrote in its rankings of The Best Gaming ISPs for 2023. “None of the ISPs mentioned could compare with the local provider in Longmont, Colorado: NextLight.”

NextLight has ranked among PCMag’s fastest ISPs since 2018, including a second-place ranking in the nation this year. This is the first time NextLight has topped the national Best Gaming ISP list, although it frequently has been among the leaders for the seven-state Northwest Region.

“When things get fast and furious, every gamer wants a connection they can count on,” said Valerie Dodd, NextLight’s executive director, in a news release. “We’re proud to give our community the fast, reliable fiber that meets the needs of all our customers, whether they’re working from home or dominating the virtual battlefield.”

PCMag bases its rankings on connection quality, as measured by latency, the time it takes for an internet packet to reach its destination, and jitter, which measures how consistent that time is. Both are vital to hard-core gamers, since a connection’s responsiveness can be a matter of (virtual) life and death in games such as Fortnite, Call of Duty or Halo.

NextLight’s top-ranking score for that reliability also was the second-best score PCMag has ever recorded.

Long known for its symmetrical gigabit connections, NextLight added new speed levels up to 10 gigabits earlier this year and also provides a WiFi6 whole home solution that allows a home’s wireless devices to capture more of NextLight’s fiber-based speeds. Residential customers can get the 10-gigabit service for $249.95 per month or the 2.5-gigabit home connection for $149.95 per month. NextLight’s 1-gigabit service is priced at $69.95 per month, but lower for users who subscribed when the service was first offered.

On the business front, NextLight has expanded its commercial offerings to include symmetrical speed levels of 2.5, five and 10 gigabits. 

The network is offering up to two months of free WiFi6 for customers who add it to their service by Dec. 31; more information can be found at www.mynextlight.com/offers.

Small and municipal providers in general scored well on the rankings, including Connexion, Fort Collins’ municipal ISP. Connexion ranked fourth in the Northwest Region with a score that was less than a point away from the national top 10.

“For the most part,” PCMag wrote, “going with an agile local provider is going to pay off when it comes to the quality of your gameplay.”