Several cable companies have boosted their top speeds in 2014. In late April, Time Warner Cable announced major speed increases in specific parts of their service area (Los Angeles and New York) with a top speed of 300mbps. This announcement states:
Users in those communities will see the company’s Standard Internet plan bumped from 15 Mbps to 50 Mbps, and the company’s Ultimate plan bumped from 100 Mbps to 300 Mbps — for the same current pricing.
Business customers also have new Wideband plans in those same communities of up to 300mbps x 10mbps.
In the same month, Cox Communications revealed plans to offer gigabit speeds to all their residential subscribers starting by the end of 2016. And in July, they kicked off a speed upgrade for all their top tier customers:
Under the plan, the maximum downstream speed for its Preferred offering will increase from 25 Mbps to 50 Mbps, while its Premier tier will jump from 50 Mbps to 100 Mbps. Cox said more than 70% of its high-speed Internet customers take one of those two tiers.
This should be surprising since the statement from Cox indicates that more than 70% of their broadband customers were subscribing to speeds of 25mbps or higher.
In Dayton, there are rarely options at 50mbps for home users and currently no options for speeds above 50mbps. Fiber broadband would provide speeds of up to 1gbps, or 20 times the currently available top speeds.
Leigh Sandy is the founder of Extra Mile Fiber and has been building and operating networks connected to the Internet since 1995.