Gigabit/fiber internet is the way of the future. There’s no doubt about it.
It may not seem like it, but year after year, the internet service gets a little bit faster.
If you were alive to use the internet in the 90s, that’s a fairly obvious statement. Not only is the internet significantly faster than it was back then, you don’t have to wait for your sister to get off the landline phone before you can log on.
But even apart from that more extreme example, the internet always gets faster. And even if you’re current home internet is pretty fast, you can reasonably expect it get even faster in the near future. If you order gigabit, that will unquestionably be the circumstance.
Cox Communications has been working on developing their own gigabit service, and while it may be taking longer than they may have initially expected, there are plans to bring gigabit to certain markets soon.
What is Gigabit?
First off, let’s explore what spectrum gigabit internet even is, and what you can with it.
Gigabit internet isn’t extraordinarily different from modern broadband services, but there are key differences. One of those differences is how it is powered, which is through fiber optic lines.
Using fiber optic lines, however, is not terribly uncommon for other broadband services. What really separates gigabit internet is the speed. Users who have access to gigabit internet have internet that is 100 times faster than modern broadband packages. That is the most significant improvement in the history of the internet.
With the kind of speed you get from gigabit internet, here are some things you can feasibly do:
- Download 100 songs in three seconds
- Download an HD movie in seven seconds
And much more. If you like to download a lot of content, gigabit makes the process much, much faster than ever before.
Cox’s Plans for Gigabit
The first mover in the gigabit market was Google. Google Fiber was founded in 2010, and ever since they have slowly expanded into several cities, the first one being Kansas City.
As you might imagine, Fiber users have been incredibly satisfied with the service. Because of that, other telecom/media companies have been compelled to build similar services in order to compete.
Cox is such a company, and they were quick to move on making plans for the future.
Right now, Cox has gigabit internet options in 13 states. The markets that currently have access to gigabit internet through Cox include Phoenix, New Orleans, and Las Vegas. Cox Omaha has entered into the gigabit market as well.
Originally, they wanted to be in 19 states by the end of 2017, but the transition to gigabit isn’t quite as easy as you may think.
First off, actually laying fiber-optic cable is complicated and expensive. Cox is looking for workarounds that may be beneficial to them and other similar companies for the future.
For example, Cox is the first company of its kind to put in place new converged cable access platform systems. Doing so should allow for telecom companies to upgrade pre-existing hybrid fiber-coaxial plant. This would amount to huge savings in construction fees.
It would also make a faster transition as well. Cox’s goal is to have gigabit internet available to all of its customers by the year 2020. While they may not have been able to fulfill their goal for 2017, the technology they are creating to speed up the process should make the 2020 goal much more reasonable to attain. And even if Cox didn’t quite live up to its own internal expectations, the fact of the matter is that they are greatly outdistancing their competitors.