TDS Telecom now offers symmetrical 8 Gbps service to more than 75 communities across the United States.
The 8 Gbps service also is planned for new deployments in Idaho, Montana, North Carolina, Washington and Wisconsin. The new level is four times the 2 Gbps speed the company launched in select areas last fall.
“We are committed to being the fastest provider in our fiber communities,” Andrew Petersen, TDS Telecom’s senior vice president of Corporate Affairs, said in a press release about the TDS 8 Gbps service. “Our rollout of speeds up to 8 Gig shows how powerful and flexible fiber-optic technology is.”
High speed symmetrical service is seen by many fiber broadband providers as a competitive advantage against the cable industry. Today’s cable infrastructure evolved from one that focused almost exclusively on the downstream. Though it has taken steps to address its shortcoming through the DOCSIS program, fiber broadband providers often hold an advantage.
TDS Telecommunications offers services in more than 1,100 rural and suburban areas in 32 states across the country. The company is headquartered in Madison, WI.
Many providers that have deployed fiber broadband are offering high-speed symmetrical services, although most do not match the TDS 8 Gbps offering. Some examples:
- Frontier now offers symmetrical 2 Gbps service throughout its footprint.
- AT&T now offers symmetrical 5 Gbps service throughout a large part of its service area.
- Some smaller companies also are getting in on the trend — including a few that exceed the TDS benchmark. For example, ALLO Communications offers speeds as fast as 10 Gbps symmetrically in some areas.
How the frick is this possible when the most dense geographic duopoly / monopolies are bleeding the consumer dry with high prices and refusing to upgrade infrastructure to support these services at a reasonable price. Also, within certain geographies, we see telco fiber in places where cable is not.. and cable where telco fiber is not– as if these companies carved out slices of red-lining to gouge these consumers with high prices padding their bottom lines.. The FCC should begin looking into this practice of lack of infrastructure and the pricing associated with these geographies that consumers must pay ($$$). These consumers often net no net discount and keep getting gouged with no recourse other than to unsubscribe and get nothing.