Best Internet Providers in Arlington, Virginia

What is the best internet provider in Arlington?

CNET’s Best Provider Pick for most families in Arlington it’s Xfinity. In addition to offering service to most addresses in the city, the service also offers you the fastest plan in Arlington. For $120 per month, Xfinity customers can achieve download speeds of up to 2 gigabits per second, with no data caps or monthly equipment fees. Providers like Verizon Fios and T-Mobile are also strong choices for home internet, depending on availability.

Xfinity also offers one of the cheapest plans in Arlington, tied with Astound Broadband. While Astound provides faster speeds with its base plan, availability is much rarer. Xfinity Connect costs $25 per month for speeds of up to 150 megabits per second.

Best Internet in Arlington, Virginia

Source: CNET analysis of provider data.

Source: CNET analysis of provider data.

How to find deals and promotions online in Arlington

The best internet deals and top promotions in Arlington depend on what discounts are available during that period. Most deals are short-lived, but we often look for the latest deals.

Arlington Internet providers, such as Xfinity, Cox and Astound Broadband, may offer lower introductory prices or streaming add-ons for a limited time. However, many of them, including Verizon and T-Mobile, have the same standard prices year-round.

For a more extensive list of promotions, check out our guide to the best internet deals.

Source: CNET analysis of provider data.

What is a good internet speed?

Most internet connection plans can now handle basic productivity and communication tasks. If you’re looking for an Internet plan that can accommodate video conferencing, video streaming, or gaming, you’ll have a better experience with a stronger connection. Here is a summary of the minimum recommended download speeds for various applications, according to the FCC. Note that these are guidelines only — and that Internet speed, service, and performance vary by connection type, provider, and address.

For more information, refer to our guide on how much internet speed you really need.

• 0 to 5 Mbps lets you get by with the basics — surfing the web, sending and receiving email, streaming low-quality video.
• 5 to 40 Mbps gives you the highest quality video streaming and video conferencing.
• 40 to 100 Mbps should give a user enough bandwidth to meet the demands of modern telecommunications, video streaming and online gaming.
• 100 to 500 Mbps allows one to two users to simultaneously engage in high-bandwidth activities such as video conferencing, streaming, and gaming.
• 500 to 1000 Mbps allows three or more users to engage in high-bandwidth activities at the same time.

How CNET picked the best Internet providers in Arlington

Internet service providers are numerous and regional. Unlike the latest smartphone, laptop, router, or kitchen appliance, it’s impractical to personally test every ISP in a given city. So what is our approach? We start by researching price, availability, and speed information based on our historical ISP data, provider sites, and map information from the Federal Communications Commission at FCC.gov.

But it doesn’t end there. We go to the FCC website to check our records and make sure we account for every ISP that provides service in an area. We also enter local addresses into provider websites to find specific options for residents. We look to sources, including the American Customer Satisfaction Index and JD Power, to gauge how satisfied customers are with an ISP’s service. ISP plans and prices are subject to frequent change; all information provided is correct at the time of publication.

Once we have this localized information, we ask three key questions:

1. Does the provider offer access to reasonably fast internet speeds?
2. Are customers getting good value for what they are paying?
3. Are customers satisfied with their service?

While the answer to these questions is often layered and complex, the providers that come closest to saying “yes” to all three are the ones we recommend. When it comes to choosing the cheapest internet service, we look for the plans with the lowest monthly fee, although we also take into account things like price increases, equipment fees and contracts. Choosing the fastest internet service is relatively simple. We look at advertised upload and download speeds and also consider real-world speed data from sources like Ookla and FCC reports. (Ookla is owned by the same parent company as CNET, Ziff Davis.)

To explore our process in more depth, visit our page on how we test ISPs.

Arlington Internet Providers FAQ