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Does anyone know any High Speed Internet providers?

Will there be a viable successor to cable companies as the primary providers of high speed Internet for home users?

  • I know that cell phone providers are an obvious answer, but I'm wondering if there will be anyone offering unlimited data ever again.

  • Answer:

    I don't believe that the 4G providers will be replacements for wired home connections in the foreseeable future.  It simply takes more (much more) capacity than they have to deliver the speeds and transfer capacity that home users expect.  This of course could be changed if there is some dramatic technology advancement that lets us pack many more bits onto modulated RF.  To me the real question isn't whether we'll have uncapped options but how loose are the capped ones.  I am a Comcast customer at home and I am a pretty heavy user, because of both entertainment (mainly Amazon Video) and research (downloading linux distros and device firmware) but I seldom check my utilization because the 250 GB limit is pretty high. So, if its not the cellular guys who is it? Well, the cable operators will say its us (and they are the majority in the US) now and will be in the future.  Cable Labs is already working on DOCSIS 3.1 (3.0 is the current version) and chip manufacturers are pushing the boundaries of what can be done on a cable plant.  Broadcom announced at CES their newest SoC for DOCSIS calling it the first Gigabit offering in the space. http://www.multichannel.com/broadband/ces-broadcom-debuts-chips-1-gig-cable-modems-ultra-hd-set-tops/141088 "Broadcom’s fourth-generation DOCSIS 3.0 system-on-a-chip solution, the BCM3384, provides the ability to perform channel bonding across up to 24 downstream channels (for throughput speeds up to 960 Megabits per second in North American cable systems) and eight upstream channels (for up to 240 Mbps)." This means that the cable operators have a path on their current plant to offering Gbps speeds.  They also have several potential http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FTTX offerings.  Like http://www.cablelabs.com/dpoe/specifications/index.html and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GPON of various flavors. The telco's will also be competing for your broadband account offering a combination of bonded ADSL2+ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adsl2%2B), http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VDSL2, and the same PON (though generally not DPoE) that the cable operators will be using.

K. Scott Helms at Quora Visit the source

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Well, there already is.  Its fiber connectivity. But no, wireless will never be able to match connected cable for upload/download times.  Basic bandwidth issues.

Jeff Kesselman

Fiber optic cable is the obvious solution, but guess what?  Your cable operator already has an extensive fiber optic network, and many of them are already offering fiber-to-the-home in limited areas.  The problem, though, is that co-axial networks haven't been pushed to their breaking point yet, and with the research of DOCSIS 3.1 technology along with the inevitable demise of broadcast and cable television, it will be a good while before those co-axial networks are pushed to their breaking point.  Even if streaming 4k TV takes off like HD did, I suspect it will be at least ten years before demand makes widespread fiber-to-the-home networks necessary.  Interestingly, I think that is also about how long it will take before traditional television will die off, as the two concepts are going to be closely related.  The more reliance Americans place on streaming their video content, the more demand there will be for higher capacity broadband networks.

Bryan Kautzman

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