Cable companies may have bandwidth problems
Have you noticed lately that your download speeds are getting slower on you cable modem? This may be getting worse.
A new report by ADI Research shows that cable companies are at the dawn of a bandwidth “crunch”. With the advent of high-demand services like HD video, on-demand video, online gaming, and high-bandwidth internet applications, the cable company is in trouble.
The infrastructure, although being updated lately, cannot compare to the new fiber optic lines telephone companies are installing to compete directly with the cable companies.
According to this study, future needs will require much more bandwidth. Stick with the tech-talk for a minute. Right now cable companies have about 750MHZ of spectrum to bring you all of their services. About 675MHz of that is getting sent to your house for video, HD, on-demand, VoIP, and internet services. That leaves only about 55MHz to send back to the cable company for upload speed.
To keep their customers happy (or as happy as they can be) cable companies will have to provide better service (aka more bandwidth) to customers. That will require more infrastructure which will come right back at it’s customers in the form of…you guessed it: High monthly rates. In 10 years the cable industry has spent $100 billion on upgrades.
One can only keep that the competition for you high-speed needs between the phone company and cable company will keep the prices down to a reasonable level.