Lack of competition, not technological barriers, prevents ISPs from offering gigabit speeds
Why Comcast and other cable ISPs aren't selling you gigabit Internet — “Perhaps you should switch to another cable company... oh, that's right, we're the only one in town.” — Viacom
Context & Ripple Effects
This piece lands a week after Ars reported that cities fed up with slow, pricey Internet are demanding gigabit fiber, and it sharpens that story's premise: the constraint on US broadband speeds isn't the cable network itself but the absence of a second provider on the wire. The Viacom line quoted — 'switch to another cable company… oh, that's right, we're the only one in town' — captures why Comcast can sit on gigabit capability it demonstrably has.
The pickup was broad for an argument piece: BGR, PC World, and DSLreports all ran it the same day. It also connects to Comcast's behavior off-network — its confirmed heavy donations to unseat Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn over his high-speed Internet policies suggest the company treats competitive threats to its local monopolies as a political problem, not just a market one.
First-order effects
- Comcast and other cable ISPs can keep selling sub-gigabit tiers in single-provider markets because no local rival exists to force an upgrade, even where their networks are technically capable of more.
Second-order effects
- Municipal gigabit projects become the de facto competitive lever: cities dissatisfied with incumbent pricing are the one actor positioned to introduce competition where the market hasn't, which explains why incumbents contest them politically rather than on price.
Third-order effects
- If deployment continues to track competition rather than capability, US broadband policy shifts from 'how do we build faster networks' to 'how do we create local rivals' — through municipal fiber, regulatory action, or both — with incumbent lobbying as the counterforce.
The trend: US broadband speed deployment is being set by the presence or absence of local competition rather than by network technology, pushing cities and regulators toward building the rivalry the market won't.