America's Most Wired Cities (Elizabeth Woyke)

Pop quiz: What's America's most wired city? You might guess someplace in Silicon Valley, Los Angeles or San Diego. East Coast fans might bet on New York or even Chicago.

But you've got to head south.

A variety of factors boost the Big Peach's techno quotient. As the communications hub for the Southeast, Atlanta boasts regional headquarters for AT&T (nyse: T - news - people ) and Verizon (nyse: VZ - news - people ) and a bustling community of Internet-related start-ups. It's also home to BellSouth and EarthLink (nasdaq: ELNK - news - people )--a major promoter of citywide wireless networks until recent months--as well as cable giant Cox Communications. And it got an early jump on cutting-edge technology after spending millions to wire its downtown area for the 1996 Olympics.

Still, its leading status mystifies some. "It's a dynamic area with a lot of young people, but exactly why it's No. 1 is a mystery to me," notes telecom analyst Jeff Kagan, who coincidentally is a long-time resident of Atlanta.

Here are some clues. To calculate our list, we looked at the percentage of Internet users with high-speed access, the range of service providers within a city and the availability of public wireless hot spots. Atlanta ranks highest in broadband adoption, access options and fourth in wi-fi availability. According to Nielsen Online, 97.2% of the city's home Internet users accessed the Web via a high-speed connection in November.

Read More: Forbes