Cox is the latest cable operator to increase broadband speeds, announcing today it will increase speeds to 250 Mbps from 150 Mbps for its most popular broadband tier.
Customers in the Cox Preferred broadband tier will get the speed upgrade at no charge. They will have to reset their modems to receive the faster speed.
“We continue to make investments in our network and increase speeds across all tiers of service to meet the diverse needs of our customers and provide them with the ability to keep all their devices connected simultaneously in their homes,” said Len Barlik, EVP and chief technology officer at Cox in a press release.
Cox joins a parade of cable operators who have recently announced broadband speed increases, including Charter, Comcast, and Mediacom.
One could assume that these cable speed increases are competitive positioning for cable companies, who are seeing a rapid expansion of fiber broadband from telco competitors. A natural reaction is increase speeds, since fiber can offer faster symmetrical speeds than cable can. At least for now.
The cable industry’s 10G initiatives will help close the speed gap, but that will take a while to reach the market. Cox has already announced its intention to pursue this strategy.
Just last month, the operator announced a multi-billion dollar network upgrade plan that will bring both DOCSIS 4.0 and FTTP technology to its network.
“Our intent is to remind the market that we are going to continue to aggressively invest in the communities we serve to maintain and build highly competitive networks,” a spokesman told Telecompetitor at the time of this announcement.
Cox also says it will spend $400 million to reach more unserved and underserved rural markets. The operator says it will be active in federal funding programs to help achieve this goal as well.
