Last week Charter Communications announced a new agreement with Apple to stream Lakers’ basketball games to Apple’s new Vision Pro VR goggles. Apple and Charter said the games will stream to viewers at up to 150 Mbps.
This is an interesting move by Charter, which continues to fight against the competitive threat posed by fixed wireless access (FWA) providers like Verizon and T-Mobile. “We've noted how VR immersion could be the use case to end fixed wireless threats,” wrote the financial analysts with TD Cowen.
It’s been fascinating to watch the buzz around these Vision Pro VR goggles, so we took a look at how many people in the U.S. would actually be able to access Vision Pro VR content streamed at 150 Mbps.
According to Ookla Speedtest Intelligence, 30.7% of all the Speedtest samples on fixed networks in September 2025 were below the 150 Mbps mark. The rest were faster.
The devil's in the details
Here’s all the details and caveats to this finding:
- Some internet users might not subscribe to a plan with speeds above 150 Mbps (indeed, Charter itself advertises a 100 Mbps rate plan). But speeds below 150 Mbps might also be due to the technological limits of that customer’s network connection. Either way, around a third of all U.S. fixed internet users would need to do … something ... in order to speed up their access to the internet so they could tune in to a 150 Mbps stream of VR content.
- Apple uses the MV-HEVC standard for VR (a resolution of 4320 x 4320 and a frame rate of 90 fps). It’s not clear whether that can be compressed for slower networks (like how Netflix can adjust its streams for different network speeds). One report speculates that Vision Pro users could need connections of “a few hundred Mbps.” But others have speculated that 70 Mbps might be OK too.
- None of this addresses the question of latency, which may not come into play with “one-to-many” streamed content like a Lakers game (where a user receives a stream and doesn’t send anything back). But latency speeds could have huge implications for two-way VR applications, such as interactive meetings or cloud-based gaming (where both ends of the connection must continuously send and receive data).
The takeaway is that it would be wise for other network operators to keep an eye on emerging gadgets like the Apple Vision Pro or Meta’s Ray-Ban products (indeed, Apple has reportedly pivoted away from goggles and toward glasses, following Meta’s Ray-Ban advancements.)
Who is buying VR goggles?
So far, such devices haven’t really sold in huge numbers — the Vision Pro goes for a whopping $3,500! But it’s possible that some future VR device could hit a mass market sweet spot in terms of price and features.
If one of these gadgets does suddenly become popular, and streaming VR content hits prime time, operators are going to need to make sure their networks can support this new type of content. Just look back to the early days of the iPhone, and the strain that gadget put onto wireless networks worldwide. Or think back to the early days of COVID-19 pandemic, when a surge in streaming from Netflix, YouTube, and others pushed networks to their limits. No operator wants to be stuck in that situation.
Mike Dano is a Lead Industry Analyst on Ookla’s analyst team, covering telecommunications markets across North and South America, as well as global technology trends. Prior to joining Ookla, Mike spent 25 years as a journalist reporting on the telecom industry for publications including RCR Wireless News, Fierce Network, and Light Reading.
Note: The companies mentioned in the opinion may be clients of Ookla.
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