So Fios said no. Here’s what a renter can actually do.

Here is the honest map. Availability varies by building for every provider on it — including us — so check your exact address with each one.

Cable — Spectrum or Astound. If a cable line already reaches your apartment, this is the path of least resistance: setup is usually quick, nothing new has to be built, and the download speeds are usually plenty. Two things to read closely before you sign: the upload speed, which is where your video calls live, and what the price becomes after any promotional period ends. Cable can absolutely be the right answer. If you’re comparing line by line, we publish dated side-by-sides with Optimum and Astound.

5G home internet — Verizon or T-Mobile. The genuine advantage for a renter: the equipment typically plugs into a wall outlet, with nothing to install and no building permission to arrange. The honest caveat: it runs over the air from a cell network, so what you get can depend on the signal at your particular apartment — which way your windows face, what stands between them and the nearest site — and on how busy that network is at peak hours. Two neighbors in one building can have different experiences. If either provider offers it at your address, it costs little to find out: check whether there’s a trial window, then test it at 8 p.m. on a weeknight, not at 10 a.m.

A neighborhood provider — ConnectNYC. We deliver service rooftop to rooftop and grow building by building, which is why a carrier’s footprint doesn’t decide ours. Live today from W 57th to 110th Street, Central Park West to the Hudson; plans run $89, $119, or $149 a month for 150/50, 300/100, or 600/200 Mbps, taxes included, no contract, no data cap. Every building is confirmed individually after a building-check request — more on that below, because the renter part matters.

Staying put. If what you have works and the bill is one you’d pay on purpose, keep it. Switching has costs too. The time to move is when the price jumps, the evening upload chokes, or you never had a second option to begin with.

Renters assume a new provider means organizing the building: a petition, a pitch to the landlord, a fight about the roof. With us it means none of that. One household is enough to start, and the building conversation becomes our job, not yours.

Here’s the sequence. You request a building check — no card, nothing charged. A person confirms the exact building and replies by email with the result. If a survey is the next step, we can offer a site survey as soon as the next day. If roof access needs the owner’s sign-off, ConnectNYC contacts ownership or management as ConnectNYC about the building. We don’t use your name in that conversation unless you opt in. There is a page written for owners if you’d rather pass it along yourself — but you never have to.

If the building checks out, the install is $150 once in an apartment building — customers in larger buildings usually self-install over existing coax; smaller buildings get a professional dedicated line from the rooftop. Qualified customers may have service installed in approximately 24 hours, subject to access and installation conditions. And if ownership says no, we tell you plainly, and you have lost nothing — no card, no charge, no contract. The FAQ covers the in-betweens.

If your building is inside the live area — W 57th to 110th Street, Central Park West to the Hudson — the offer is simple: request the building check. No card, no commitment. A person checks the exact building and replies by email with the result, including when the result is not yet. If your answer turns out to be cable or a 5G box, genuinely, take it — the point of this guide is a good decision, not a conversion. And if you’re outside the zone, send the building for a review — we grow building by building.