Broadband in America: Improving Speeds & Access
U.S Telecom
Published: October 9, 2014
In an age where many American consumers are turning to the Internet for video and gaming, it’s no surprise that there is growing demand for faster broadband service. Fortunately, the marketplace is responding to this demand, providing consumers with competitive options. Wireline broadband providers, both big and small, have committed a considerable amount of resources and investment to deliver high-speeds to consumers, and continue to improve and expand their fiber networks across the nation. Last week, GVTC, the broadband provider serving south central Texas, announced that it has unleashed 1 gigabit Internet speeds to residents and businesses, which includes parts of far north San Antonio, the Texas Hill country and the Gonzales, Texas area. Furthermore, the company is in the process of expanding fiber to an additional 2,600 homes in select residential neighborhoods.
In addition, both AT&T and Verizon have made considerable progress and investment in building out their company’s fiber networks. Through U-verse, AT&T is taking gigabit broadband to as many as 100 municipalities within 21 major metropolitan areas. It’s also planning to expand its network to several other major cities, including San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, Cleveland, Miami, Houston, Charlotte.
Similarly, Verizon’s FiOS all-fiber-optic technology is taking a leap forward by offering upload speeds that match download speeds. The upgrade is provided free to existing and new Verizon FiOS residential customers in step with digital consumer demand for symmetric traffic, which Verizon notes is expected to increase approximately 60 percent by 2017.
CenturyLink customers are also benefitting from the company’s ultra-fast fiber network, which is now delivering symmetrical broadband speeds up to 1 gigabit per second to select locations in 16 cities, including Denver, Las Vegas, Seattle, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Orlando and Salt Lake City.
Last mile connections to the home are not the only area where wireline broadband providers are upgrading fiber. Long haul fiber infrastructure is essential to carry growing video, mobile, enterprise and data center traffic across the country. For example, Windstream is expanding its 100 gigabit per second long-haul express network, which covers 4,100 miles including routes from Chicago to Omaha, Kansas City and St. Louis; Cleveland to Albany, Boston, New York City and Philadelphia; Atlanta to Charlotte and Ashburn, Va.; and Monroe, La., to Memphis, Tenn. This effort is scheduled to be finished by the end of the year.
Fiber investment efforts are clearly helping elevate America’s high-speed broadband performance in comparison to the global market. According to Akamai’s latest “State of the Internet Report,” the top 10 states in the U.S. with the highest levels of broadband connectivity compare favorably to the world’s top 10 countries with both South Korea and Delaware showing 95 percent of connections were at 4 Mpbs or greater speeds. In fact, the top 10 U.S. states in terms of the share of connections exceeding either 10 Mbps or 15 Mbps also fit comfortably within the range of the top 10 countries in the world in those categories. Additionally, as this Washington Post blog points out, a majority of these states saw Internet speeds accelerate in the second quarter compared to the previous quarter, while seven states experienced double-digit increases in average speeds between the first two quarters of the year. Speeds were also universally higher from the year before.
Based on this latest data and the expressed commitment by broadband providers to continue to expand and improve ultra, high-speed gigabit Internet networks to America, consumers will soon see more choices for ultra-fast connectivity.