Lumos vs. WOW Internet Providers Compared

Attractive pricing for Lumos Fiber plans and better DSL pricing than competitors

Lumos does not emphasize its DSL offerings in its promotions. The ISP is working hard to replace DSL networks with fiber service. Nonetheless, you may live in a service area where Lumos can only offer you DSL. If that is the case, your pricing will be $34/month for DSL, which is pretty good considering most DSL plans from other providers start at $50. Still, what most people are going to want from Lumos Fiber is… fiber. Even solid DSL will not come near the speed and reliability of fiber internet. Your fiber plan offers from Lumos Fiber will be appealing. For fiber’s symmetrical speeds, you will get 200 Mbps for $40/month. That price will not get an automatic hike after a year. It’s simply the standard price. That is a very good deal! Most other providers that even approach that monthly price are offering slower speeds such as 50 or 100 Mbps. In Lumos’s higher speed tiers, you will also get attractive promotional offers for a year, then a minimal price hike of $10 after that first year. This increase is far less that the $20-30 price increases you’ll often see from other fiber or cable providers. For example, the Lumos 500 Mbps fiber plan will start at $50/month for 12 months, then move to $60 standard pricing. The 1 Gig plan will begin at $70/month for 12 months, then increase to the standard $80 rate. Lumos Fiber also has a 2 Gig plan available in select areas starting at $100/month. These are great internet plan prices. All the Lumos Fiber levels are $5-10 below AT&T Fiber’s monthly prices, and AT&T is usually thought to have competitive fiber plans. As for a comparison with major cable providers, Lumos Fiber comes out way ahead. Spectrum’s standard cable internet rate for 1 Gig download/35 Mbps upload is $120/month. Need we say more? Lumos Fiber’s price is 30% lower than the Spectrum price, and Lumos is also offering a superior speed at symmetrical 1 Gig download/upload speeds. When you consider that Lumos also does not require data caps or annual contracts for its plans, it’s easy to see why users like Lumos Fiber.

WOW’s prices are so low they’ll WOW you

If there’s any way that WOW! can claim to have truly earned its name, it’s with low pricing. The first-tier plan will give you 100 Mbps download and 10 Mbps upload speed for only $20 a month, and that price lasts a full year. Sure, it’s not superfast speed, but 100/10 is as good as most first-tier cable internet plans. And $20/month is almost unheard of. After one year, your cost will jump to $40/month, but that’s still on the very low end of cable ISP pricing. Price hikes get lower as your plan gets faster. For example, you can get the mid-range plan at 500 Mbps download/50 Mbps upload speed for only $55/month. The shocker? There is no price hike at all. That is rock-bottom pricing for a half-Gig plan with pretty good upload speed by cable standards. It’s certainly enough speed to allow most households to do gaming and streaming simultaneously on multiple devices. A full 1000 Mbps or 1 Gig download from WOW! will run you $65 for the promotional period and $75 after the first year. That’s considerably cheaper than several other major cable providers’ 1 Gig plans, and offers the 50 Mbps upload speed that tends to be the max for cable internet. In July 2022, WOW! launched a 1.2 Gig plan as their fastest option [3]. This is an unusual speed tier given that the company already had a 1 Gig plan, and that the upload speeds for both plans are the same at 50 Mbps. But there are some advantages for the extra $20/month. The 1.2 Gig plan is the only WOW! Plan that doesn’t charge an equipment fee and doesn’t have data caps. Those are pretty good perks that probably justify the extra $20. But you did hear that correctly: WOW!’s lower-speed plans do have a couple of drawbacks that may increase their otherwise excellent prices. Those drawbacks are data caps and a $14/month modem rental fee. Fortunately, the equipment rental fee is optional, meaning that you can skip it if you provide your own modem/router instead. And the data caps are fairly high for the lowest-tier plans (1.5 TB/month) and very high for the 500 Mbps (2.5 TB) and 1 Gig (3 TB) plans. The high caps for the fastest plans make it very unlikely that you will exceed your data caps. If you do exceed them, you will get a maximum overage charge of $50/month. So, just don’t go crazy and have 40 gamers play at your house for a month. The vast majority of households will not ever approach the limits of a 2.5 TB data cap.

Lumos Fiber offers up to 2 Gigs symmetrical fiber speeds

Lumos has been building fiber infrastructure as quickly as possible, often “overbuilding” fiber in areas where they once offered DSL [4]. As usual, fiber internet outperforms every other internet technology. With Lumos Fiber plans, you will get symmetrical speeds that allow you to use multiple devices for HD streaming or real-time gaming. Videoconferencing will be smooth and glitch-free. If you have to upload large files for work, fiber internet can do it in seconds where DSL might take 30 minutes. That brings us to how your internet performance will differ if you are in an area where Lumos can only offer DSL. Your download speed with a Lumos DSL plan will vary from 15 Mbps to about 30 Mbps depending on your location, while upload speeds usually won’t top 3 Mbps. If your only alternative is satellite internet or fixed wireless, then you might consider DSL. But if you have a choice of a cable internet provider, cable will probably be your best option until fiber internet reaches your area.

WOW! cable is a fast, strong choice with gigabit download speeds but slower upload speeds

Internet performance from WOW! matches the stats of the largest cable providers in the nation such as Spectrum and Infinity. You will get fast speeds from WOW!’s high-end plans that will support streaming and gaming with multiple devices. The chief disadvantage of cable internet is that upload speeds are so slow compared to the symmetrical speeds of fiber internet. If you want to do large uploads or real-time gaming on 10 devices at once in your home, there’s no question that you’ll be better off with fiber’s lightning-fast uploads. But for most households with average internet usage, a fast cable plan like WOW! internet will be good enough.

Monthly equipment rental fee optional if you use personal modem/router

Lumos charges about $10 a month to supply you with a gateway (modem/router combo). Though Lumos allows you to use your own modem/router, you should first be sure your device is compatible with their service. Like most providers, Lumos can’t guarantee tech support for customers’ personal modems and routers. If you get Lumos Total Home Wi-Fi, you will also have access to an app that allows you to manage your Wi-Fi network, including parental controls for internet access. Lumos will charge a $75 installation fee for some plans, but your installation fee may be waived for certain promotions or plans.

Equipment rental fees are optional, self-installation is free for WOW!

All WOW! plans come with a free self-installation kit. If for any reason you’re not comfortable with self-installation, you can get pro installation for $50. Though most plans will allow you to rent a modem/router from WOW! for $14/month, you also have the option to supply your own equipment. This choice may be better for your budget if you plan to have service for more than a year. Just make sure you check with WOW! to be sure your router has compatible specs.

N/A (too new to score)

As we mentioned in the summary, Lumos Fiber is too new and small to have accumulated any national scores from customer satisfaction surveys such as J.D. Power. There isn’t even much of an internet footprint for customer reviews since the merger occurred in summer 2022. For that reason, we will not assign Lumos Fiber an official score for customer satisfaction until there’s more user feedback online. However, reporting from our staff’s experience, Lumos Fiber is quite popular with customers in North Carolina. Taking a straw poll on a neighborhood association page or on Nextdoor.com will often result in your neighbors telling you that Lumos Fiber is the best ISP in town. Do remember that ISP satisfaction can vary widely from one location to another. Customers of the former North State in North Carolina may have a different experience from customers of the former Lumos Networks in Virginia. But thus far, reports for Lumos Fiber seem positive. We’ll update you with more information as the company establishes a track record in its new form.

WOW! offers the same customer support amenities as the largest national ISPs [4]. You will get an online portal to allow you to manage your account. Telephone help is available 24/7. Online chat is available every day between 7:00 AM and 11:45 PM EST. In the J.D. Power 2023 U.S. Residential Internet Service Provider Satisfaction Study, WOW! outperformed much larger ISPs such as Cox [5]. That strong performance indicates WOW! customers are pretty happy with their service.