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Cable Internet in the USA

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Provider Types

Providers Offering Cable Service

We've found 418 providers offering Cable service in the US. Below are stats on their coverage and speeds.

Xfinity 122,350,395 41 2000 mbps
Spectrum 110,551,034 42 1000 mbps
Cox Communications 23,295,442 19 1000 mbps
Optimum by Altice 20,585,604 21 1000 mbps
Astound Broadband Powered by RCN 9,432,046 9 1000 mbps
Mediacom Cable 7,488,577 22 1000 mbps
Sparklight (formerly Cable One) 5,463,982 23 1000 mbps
Astound Broadband Powered by Wave 5,025,739 3 1000 mbps
WOW! 4,656,107 6 1200 mbps
Breezeline 3,722,722 12 1000 mbps
Astound Broadband Powered by Grande 2,078,318 1 1000 mbps
Liberty Cablevision 2,028,477 1 600 mbps
Midco 1,541,146 5 1000 mbps
Vyve Broadband 1,236,076 17 1000 mbps
Armstrong 1,018,003 5 1000 mbps
TDS Telecom 866,987 8 1000 mbps
Service Electric Cable TV 808,904 2 1000 mbps
Zito Media 742,358 22 1000 mbps
Buckeye Broadband 584,605 2 1000 mbps
Blue Ridge Communications 581,643 1 1000 mbps
GCI Communication 523,779 1 2000 mbps
Shentel 411,853 4 1000 mbps
Service Electric Cablevision 403,408 1 1500 mbps
Fidelity Communications 400,986 5 1024 mbps
Rainier Connect 380,176 1 1000 mbps
Cablelynx Broadband 356,014 4 1000 mbps
Bluepeak 330,391 2 1000 mbps
Comporium Communications 315,280 2 1000 mbps
Consolidated Communications 307,684 5 1000 mbps
MaxxSouth Broadband 287,659 2 1000 mbps
Windstream 282,136 4 1150 mbps
Astound Broadband Powered by En-Touch 241,632 1 1000 mbps
yondoo Broadband 228,415 1 250 mbps
Blue Stream Fiber 200,161 1 1000 mbps
Massillon Cable TV 180,351 2 200 mbps
Antietam Broadband 141,642 1 1000 mbps
Swyft Connect 130,925 3 200 mbps
REV 129,977 1 300 mbps
Horry Telephone Cooperative 128,857 1 1000 mbps
Ritter Communications 119,146 3 1024 mbps
CAS Cable 115,253 2 3000 mbps
Riviera Utilities 110,695 1 300 mbps
Hargray Communications 106,857 2 1000 mbps
Adams Cable Service 97,471 2 250 mbps
TruVista 96,595 2 500 mbps
CTV Beam 95,080 1 250 mbps
Summit Broadband 90,518 1 1000 mbps
Giggle Fiber 89,380 1 1000 mbps
Orbitel Communications 88,429 1 1000 mbps
ImOn Communications 88,318 1 100 mbps
USA Communications 87,146 3 60 mbps
CNSNext 85,462 1 500 mbps
ETC Communications, LLC 84,065 3 300 mbps
Inter Mountain Cable 82,422 3 1000 mbps
OneSource Communications 79,863 1 500 mbps
CentraCom 78,228 2 500 mbps
Mid-Hudson Cablevision 70,605 1 300 mbps
Arvig 63,310 1 100 mbps
FOCUS Broadband 61,670 1 600 mbps
Conway Corporation 61,210 1 2000 mbps
commZoom 56,829 1 300 mbps
All West Communications 51,705 1 1000 mbps
CASSCOMM 49,037 1 50 mbps
Astrea 48,922 2 1000 mbps
Frankfort Plant Board 48,523 1 250 mbps
i3 Broadband 48,459 1 1000 mbps
Nittany Media 48,257 1 125 mbps
AllensTV 46,070 1 1000 mbps
Long Lines 46,049 3 1000 mbps
Bailey Cable TV 43,875 2 12 mbps
CPWS Broadband 43,429 1 1000 mbps
Spanish Fork Community Network 42,738 1 120 mbps
FiberVision Florida 41,098 1 150 mbps
SELCO 40,596 1 300 mbps
Home Telecom 40,030 1 1000 mbps
GVTC Communications 39,913 1 100 mbps
Community Cable 39,514 2 250 mbps
Thacker-Grigsby Telephone 39,231 1 1000 mbps
San Bruno Municipal Cable TV 38,519 1 300 mbps
TSC 34,620 1 100 mbps
HBC 34,366 1 1000 mbps
Mid-Rivers Telephone Cooperative 33,172 3 900 mbps
GEUS 32,433 1 450 mbps
Norwood Light Broadband 31,806 1 400 mbps
Bee Line 31,556 1 500 mbps
Reach Broadband 31,327 1 500 mbps
Boycom 30,939 1 100 mbps
ATC Broadband 30,752 1 100 mbps
D&P Communications 28,729 1 250 mbps
Smartaira 28,046 2 1000 mbps
City of Wadsworth 27,436 1 500 mbps
Great Plains Communications 27,255 3 1000 mbps
Bardstown Connect 27,115 1 512 mbps
SCI Broadband 26,229 1 250 mbps
Community Cable & Broadband 26,035 1 10 mbps
Premier Communications 25,974 1 1000 mbps
Wyandotte Municipal Services 25,052 1 300 mbps
Hotwire Communications 24,424 3 1000 mbps
altafiber 23,558 1 100 mbps
Quality Cablevision 23,395 1 75 mbps

Cable Internet In the United States

88%
88% Cable COVERAGE

When it comes to residential internet in the United States, cable is one of the most common forms of access, currently covering over 194 million Americans.

While plans and speeds vary tremendously between areas, all cable service is provided through coaxial cable (the same stuff that traditional analog TV service was provided) to deliver fast and reliable “last mile” internet access to consumers.

According to industry reports, the latest cable technology, DOCSIS 3.0 has been deployed to 85% of households and is capable of download speeds faster than 100 Mbps.

For more details about the number of providers and what communities they serve, we’ve compiled a full list of every provider offering cable service in the United States.

Shopping for a plan?

Should You Get Cable Internet Service?

If you don’t have access to fiber optic internet in your area, cable internet service may be your best bet for a fast reliable internet connection.

Just make sure to research your cable provider first to understand their reputations with regards to customer service, data caps, and billing transparency.

Benefits

Large Coverage Area

Because cable internet services leverage the existing infrastructure there is wide coverage across the continental United States and is a great solution for reliable wired broadband access.

Relatively Fast Speeds

With the latest versions of DOCSIS 3.0 and beyond cable internet is a good solution for delivering fast download and upload speeds that will support most consumer needs.

Low Latency

Cable internet has a much lower latency than other service types allowing for a faster “round trip” of data making the connection much faster than other alternatives such as fixed wireless or satellite.

Limitations

Electrical Based

Since cable technology uses electrical currents to transmit data the bandwidth capabilities and future usefulness of coaxial cables will be pale in comparison to those of fiber optic connections.

Limited Providers

Due to the cost of creating a coaxial infrastructure many areas only have access to one cable provider leaving customers with limited selection of services.

What is cable broadband?

Cable broadband is a method of delivering high-speed Internet to residences and businesses using cable television infrastructure.

Similar to DSL, fiber, and fixed wireless connections, cable bridges the “last mile” between the mainstream Internet “backbone” and customer residences.

Cable bridges the “last mile” between the mainstream Internet “backbone” and customer residences.

Cable is similar to DSL in that both use copper cables to deliver data as electrical signal, as opposed to fiber cables which use optical signal (essentially, light). While DSL uses old-fashioned copper telephone wires, cable broadband uses the same coaxial copper cables that deliver sound and video to cable television subscribers.

Cable provides speeds and bandwidth similar to DSL offerings, with most residential plans offering between 20–100Mbps for downloads and 1–10Mbps for uploads.

In theory, cable wires are more advanced than DSL wiring, allowing for greater bandwidth and faster speeds. In practice, cable connections are “shared” within neighborhoods using a technology called Statistical Multiplexing. This brings down prices for consumers and providers at the cost of slightly reduced speeds, particularly during peak use times.

Components of a cable broadband network

Most “cable” broadband connections are technically Hybrid Fiber Coaxial (HFC) connections.

In an HFC connection, a “trunk” fiber optical cable covers the distance between the provider and a local service area. Once there, it terminates at an optical node, which translates the optical signal to electrical signal. The electrical signal is routed via “branches” of coaxial cable to individual homes, where cable modems split Internet and TV signal and deliver it to a home network.

In some cases repeaters or amplifiers are used to boost signal every 600 meters or so.

Components of a cable broadband network

How coaxial cables work

Digital data is, in essence, strings of binary “on/off” signals, generally represented as zeros and ones. Everything you experience when you use the Internet is stored as digital data.

How coaxial cables work

When you tune in to a TV channel, you’re selecting a particular “slice” of the signal being transmitted over that cable, just like selecting a channel on wireless radio. In simple terms, broadband cable Internet takes up one of those “channels” on a coaxial cable.

The biggest difference between broadband Internet data and traditional TV data is that Internet data goes both ways as users upload and download content. To prevent signals from interfering with one another, coaxial cables are “split,” using 52–750 MHz for downloads and 5–42 MHz for uploads.

Upstream and Downstream Frequencies

Less spectrum is allocated for uploads because most consumers download much more content than they upload. This is why cable and DSL broadband connections are often marketed as “asynchronous.”

Anatomy of a coaxial cable

The traditional “cable networks” that cable broadband uses to bridge the “last mile” are composed of copper coaxial cables.

Coaxial cables have a variety of parts, each designed to protect and transmit electrical signals as precisely and efficiently as possible.

Anatomy of coaxial cable
  • Central copper conductor: Carries electromagnetic signal. This will often be copper-coated steel rather than pure copper, which increases the strength of the cable. High frequencies tend to travel on the outside of a conductive wire, a phenomena called “skidding,” allowing the steel central strength member to avoid interfering with the cable’s carrying capacity.
  • Plastic dielectric insulator: Maintains uniform distance between center wire and outer foil.
  • Aluminum foil: Foil essentially bounces high frequency signal back to the center wire as it tries to escape the cable. Foil also blocks high frequency electromagnetic interference from outside the cable.
  • Braided copper: This layer has a similar function to the foil, but the braided copper construction makes it particularly effective at canceling out low-frequency electromagnetic interference from outside.
  • Outer jacket: Usually made from PVC, the outer jacket protects the interior of the cable, repelling water, animals, and other contaminants once installed.

The term “coaxial” refers to the shared axis between the central copper conductor and outer foil/mesh layer. Maintaining this uniform axis or distance between the center conductor wire and outer mesh/foil creates a stable environment for signal to move, defining the “capacity” of the cable.

Anatomy of coaxial cable

The mesh also serves to protect the signal inside from electromagnetic interference outside the cable, allowing the signal to travel farther before it deteriorates.

To envision this, think about mass transportation. A traditional DSL cable is like a bus: it’ll get from point A to point B, but it’s constantly slowed down by outside traffic. Coaxial cable is like a subway line, with the mesh wrapper acting as the tunnel wall: no interference from other vehicles translates to faster, more reliable transportation.

Translating data: how DOCSIS works

In an ideal situation, broadband data would be delivered to subscribers via direct bi-directional cables. Cable has two big roadblocks to this sort of ideal setup. First, coaxial cables are not designed to be bidirectional, since they were originally designed for one-way broadcast media, specifically television. Second, they are not direct, since residence connections are shared starting at the local node.

Cable broadband providers work around these issues by using DOCSIS, an acronym for Data Over Cable Service Interface Specifications. DOCSIS is a suite of specifications developed by CableLabs, a nonprofit research organization.

How Docsis works

DOCSIS essentially oversees the transmission and “translation” between optical and digital signal through coaxial cable. It specifies a standard protocol for cable modems for modulating and demodulating electromagnetic signal on either end of a coaxial cable.

Without a universal standard like DOCSIS for how to send, receive, and translate electromagnetic signal, it would be impossible for equipment from different manufacturers to operate in complex real-world setups.

DOCSIS and cable modems

The DOCSIS standard is constantly evolving to increase service quality and boost upload capacity. As such, cable modems will include information about which DOCSIS version they use. Older DOCSIS specifications will still work, but an older DOCSIS modem will act like a bottleneck, slowing down broadband connections with faster throughput than that older DOCSIS can handle.

The latest version, DOCSIS 3.1, is designed to compete with 1Gb up/down synchronous fiber connections.

Approximate capacity of DOCSIS versions

Approximate capacity of DOCSIS versions
  • DOCSIS 1: 38Mbps Down, 9Mbps Up
  • DOCSIS 2.0: 38Mbps Down, 27Mbps Up
  • DOCSIS 3.0: 152Mbps Down, 108Mbps Up (CableLabs says it can now go even higher)
  • DOCSIS 3.1: 10,000Mbps Down, 1,000Mbps Up

Pros and Cons of cable broadband

pros


  • Uses existing TV infrastructure to reduce cost
  • High speeds rivaling pure fiber in ideal implementations
  • Affordable for combination TV/Internet packages

cons


  • Often slows down during peak use periods
  • Upload speeds usually much slower than download
  • Susceptible to electromagnetic interference

Largest Cable Providers

  1. Xfinity
    37.79% Coverage
    > 37.79
  2. Spectrum
    34.14% Coverage
    > 34.14
  3. Cox
    7.19% Coverage
    > 7.19
  4. Optimum
    6.36% Coverage
    > 6.36
  5. > 2.91
  6. Mediacom
    2.31% Coverage
    > 2.31
  7. Sparklight
    1.69% Coverage
    > 1.69

States with the most Cable coverage

  1. New Jersey
    98.6% Coverage
    98.6
  2. Connecticut
    98.2% Coverage
    98.2
  3. Massachusetts
    97.2% Coverage
    97.2
  4. Rhode Island
    97.0% Coverage
    97.0
  5. District of Columbia
    96.7% Coverage
    96.7
  6. Maryland
    96.2% Coverage
    96.2
  7. New York
    96.0% Coverage
    96.0

Cable Providers: Availability by State

Alabama 4,011,384 79.8% 14 Cable Providers
Alaska 533,102 72.7% 1 Cable Providers
Arizona 6,386,291 89.3% 11 Cable Providers
Arkansas 2,111,982 70.1% 13 Cable Providers
California 37,513,866 94.9% 23 Cable Providers
Colorado 5,079,714 88.0% 12 Cable Providers
Connecticut 3,540,316 98.2% 5 Cable Providers
Delaware 942,332 95.2% 3 Cable Providers
District of Columbia 667,066 96.7% 5 Cable Providers
Florida 20,047,744 93.1% 17 Cable Providers
Georgia 9,577,517 89.4% 21 Cable Providers
Hawaii 944,034 64.9% 2 Cable Providers
Idaho 1,476,802 80.3% 13 Cable Providers
Illinois 11,881,039 92.7% 14 Cable Providers
Indiana 5,716,807 84.3% 9 Cable Providers
Iowa 2,389,905 74.9% 30 Cable Providers
Kansas 2,345,897 79.9% 19 Cable Providers
Kentucky 3,560,512 79.0% 22 Cable Providers
Louisiana 4,038,275 86.7% 11 Cable Providers
Maine 1,211,682 88.9% 4 Cable Providers
Maryland 5,945,578 96.3% 11 Cable Providers
Massachusetts 6,830,970 97.2% 6 Cable Providers
Michigan 9,003,088 89.3% 20 Cable Providers
Minnesota 4,833,971 84.7% 17 Cable Providers
Mississippi 2,064,011 69.7% 10 Cable Providers
Missouri 4,774,982 77.6% 14 Cable Providers
Montana 706,481 65.2% 6 Cable Providers
Nebraska 1,587,641 80.9% 16 Cable Providers
Nevada 2,901,883 93.5% 7 Cable Providers
New Hampshire 1,281,515 93.0% 3 Cable Providers
New Jersey 9,156,161 98.6% 5 Cable Providers
New Mexico 1,675,595 79.1% 6 Cable Providers
New York 19,397,239 96.0% 12 Cable Providers
North Carolina 9,385,010 89.9% 20 Cable Providers
North Dakota 544,197 69.9% 4 Cable Providers
Ohio 10,804,755 91.6% 22 Cable Providers
Oklahoma 2,900,622 73.3% 6 Cable Providers
Oregon 3,828,361 90.4% 11 Cable Providers
Pennsylvania 12,422,780 95.5% 23 Cable Providers
Rhode Island 1,064,238 97.0% 5 Cable Providers
South Carolina 4,398,774 85.9% 14 Cable Providers
South Dakota 572,166 64.5% 6 Cable Providers
Tennessee 5,938,485 85.9% 15 Cable Providers
Texas 25,476,086 87.4% 25 Cable Providers
Utah 2,951,652 90.2% 8 Cable Providers
Vermont 519,156 80.7% 4 Cable Providers
Virginia 7,666,403 88.8% 13 Cable Providers
Washington 7,068,825 91.7% 21 Cable Providers
West Virginia 1,449,502 80.8% 13 Cable Providers
Wisconsin 4,803,380 81.5% 14 Cable Providers
Wyoming 407,949 70.7% 5 Cable Providers

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