Gigabit Services: Who Has the Inside Track -- Google, Telecommunications Companies, Municipalities, or Cable?

Consumer research indicates a competitive field for offering Gigabit services, but with an edge for incumbent broadband providers.

Conventional wisdom would suggest Google as a leader, but results indicate respondents preferred the local telecommunications or local cable company as a Gigabit provider over Google by a strong margin. Another key finding found relatively low preference for a local municipally-owned entity to offer Gigabit services, at least when other competitive options were available. Although cable companies are moving slowly with the Gigabit movement, research results indicate subscribers would select a cable company as their preferred provider of Gigabit over any other service provider type, by a wide margin. Overall, survey respondents clearly selected incumbent providers, both cable and telecommunications, as preferred over new entrants.

[Dec 23]