Colo. So far, cable operators lead the broadband race. Strong in residential areas, cable companies have lined up more than 560,000 users to date, about half the entire broadband customer base in 1999, according to NxGen. Not only will the telecom companies grab a considerable share of the broadband market, but satellite services such as DirecTV and fixed wireless companies that beam data via radio waves, are expected to nab a chunk of customers, too. That won't happen overnight. First, service providers have to upgrade their broadband networks.
Telephone companies are hot on cable's heels.
That's why both cable and telephone companies are busy working to overcome the limitations of their networks. Cable pipelines are shared, making them sluggish when too many users crowd on. So cable operators are extending network gear deeper into neighborhoods, dropping the number of homes sharing bandwidth from an average of 1,000 to as few as 50, says Patti A. Reali, a cable analyst at Dataquest. Telephone carriers are scrambling to find ways to deliver service to customers more than 3 miles from a central office. These offices store the DSL gear that opens up a high-capacity pipe for the delivery of data to the right homes, giving them an Internet connection that is always on.