Internet Providers in Washington, District of Columbia

Best Internet Providers in Washington, D.C.

The best internet service provider in Washington, D.C., is Verizon Fios. But Washingtonians will have to shop based on what is available in their particular area (to narrow down your results, just use the ZIP code check on this page). Aside from Verizon Fios, our data indicates Earthlink is a solid choice.

With either Verizon Fios or Earthlink, you’ll have access to fiber internet. Fiber is a “connection type”, meaning it refers to the type of infrastructure, including physical cables, that actually connects you to the internet. Fiber internet is faster and more reliable than DSL, fixed wireless, and even broadband cable connections. For Verizon Fios, that translates to speeds of up to 2 Gbps. For Earthlink, that means speeds of up to 5 Gbps.

It’s not just about the speeds, of course. Washingtonians give Verizon Fios high marks for its customer service and appreciate its prices, which start at $49.99 per month.

If you don’t have access to a fiber internet provider in your area, you’ll likely want to turn to D.C.’s cable internet provider, Xfinity. Xfinity’s reputation in the region is mixed, but the fact of the matter is that its internet plans and bundles are still competitively priced relative to most local providers. It also has a top available speed of up to 1 Gbps, which is more than fast enough for most users. It’s also available just about everywhere in D.C., making it an important source of fast internet for folks who don’t have access to one of the capital’s fiber providers.

Fastest Internet Providers in Washington, D.C.

The fastest internet service provider in our nation’s capital is none other than Xfinity, which offers speeds of up to 1 Gbps.

Of course, Washingtonians should remember that raw internet speed isn’t the whole story. Fiber internet connections are more reliable and offer faster upload speeds than cable connections. (Download speeds — which are admittedly far more important for most users than upload speeds — are the ones that cable and DSL providers advertise. For fiber, the advertised speed is for both downloads and uploads.)

It’s also worth noting that your home Wi-Fi may not really need to reach speeds of 5 or 10 Gbps. For most households, 1 Gbps is more than fast enough. Once you get into the multigig speeds, it may be harder to notice the impact. Think about how large your household is and what sorts of internet activities you’ll need to account for before you commit to paying for a particular high-speed plan.

Internet Availability in Washington, D.C.

D.C. is well-served by broadband internet companies, but shopping can be tricky because of the patchwork coverage provided by the city’s 9 different internet service providers.

Figuring out which cable provider you’ll have access to is relatively simple: Xfinity covers 99.2% of town, and that’s that. But fiber providers are trickier, and savvy shoppers will want to find out which ones are available in their particular neighborhood.

In D.C., 62.3% has access to fiber internet from Earthlink, and 62.3% has access to fiber internet via Verizon Fios. But which areas have access to these fiber options?

The good news is that the most underserved areas of Washington, D.C., are the ones that you’re least likely to be living in. Verizon Fios doesn’t serve much of the city’s core. There are a handful of notable addresses that have its service, including the National Museum of American History and Ford’s Theater (but, curiously, not the White House), according to our data. Tourists milling around the National Mall and Penn Quarter won’t, for the most part, find Verizon Fios speed when they hop onto a coffee shop’s Wi-Fi. The busy professionals of K Street are also often cut off from Fios’ coverage area.

In more residential areas of the city, however, Verizon Fios offers extensive coverage. It’s available in Bellevue and Southeast Washington, up in Lincoln Heights and Northeast Boundary, and in Central Northeast. Back across the Anacostia River, you’ll find Verizon Fios in the areas surrounding Lincoln Park and all along the border with Maryland. Verizon Fios covers neighborhoods on both sides of Rock Creek Park, including Chevy Chase. The area around American University is covered well, and so is all of Georgetown.

This gives D.C. residents a better chance at signing up with Verizon Fios than certain statistics like 62.3% might imply. When it comes to the neighborhoods where long-term residents actually live in, Verizon Fios is pretty widely available.