Care to catch up on your Netflix viewing over lunch? Grab a park bench in Ballston or Crystal City and you can do it without dinging your data plan. The Ballston and Crystal City Business Improvement Districts are contracting with local firm Wi-Fiber to provide outdoor public Wi-Fi. Unlike the 5 to 15 megabytes-per-second speeds offered by many cellphone plans, the public Wi-Fi is lightning fast, clocking in at 700 to 1,300 megabytes per second.
According to Chase Donnelly, who works out of the firm’s McLean office, a similar network covering the city center of Rosslyn will go live in early 2017. “It will be seamless,” says Donnelly. “You could sit outside, and have a video conference with China on your phone.”
What’s happening in your neighborhood? Send tips to Laurie McClellan at laurie.mcclellan@arlingtonmagazine.com.