Smithville Telephone, an Ellettsville, Indiana based independent telco, has joined the ever increasing 100 Mbps broadband provider club. Smithville has completed the first leg of a $90 million FTTH overbuild project, making a 100 Mbps broadband tier available to its first set of customers. “Currently, no other internet service provider (ISP) in the state of Indiana offers 100 mbps service for residential customers. In fact, no other ISP in the entire US Midwest offer’s more than 50 Mbps,” says Smithfield in a company statement. Some recent comments on this blog may give reason to dispute this claim, but nevertheless, it does represent an expansion of the 100 Mbps benchmark into rural America. Smithville says the 100 Mbps service will be available to half of its customer base within 12 months.
The 100 Mbps milestone has become the broadband benchmark extreme of choice. Multiple service providers are now claiming the extreme broadband tier. It amounts to a ‘broadband arms race’ of sorts. Realistically, the overwhelming majority of subscribers neither need nor can afford these 100 Mbps benchmarks. At least not yet. We’re sure the time will come when 100 Mbps is mainstream – when is anyone’s guess.
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