The telephone companies are losing their broadband subscribers. The Associated Press is reporting that during the second quarter of 2012, the phone industry lost a substantial amount of broadband subscribers while cable companies piled on new customers mainly because of the high speeds they provided.
Unlike the heavily protected cables that carry TV signals, the phone lines are mostly very old and are poorly suited to transmit Internet signals. Obviously, cable companies find it much cheaper to provide high-speed internet service in comparison to either the dial-up or DSL. With the coming of the fiber-optic system, cable companies are now offering speeds over 100Mbps in most urban areas. This is over 20 to 25 times faster than the old DSL.
As per data collected it shows that in the U.S., broadband market is growing rapidly, but slowly. In other words, during the second quarter of 2012, there were 260,000 new broadband subscribers opposite 350,000 broadband subscribers that had signed up during the second quarter of 2011.
Susan Crawford, a former assistant to President Obama on telecommunications states that this problem could be solved if cable providers allowed other companies to provide Internet service using their cable infrastructure. This would then create a competition among the ISP’s thereby providing more options to the consumer.
A freedom from regulation is a must as it invites companies to invest in their system thereby upgrading speed. This applies only for the home broadband, as the mobile broadband is a different ballgame altogether.
