Level Up: Cable Providers Are Improving Uplink Speeds

Cable is in a pitched battle for broadband subscribers in the US. It has been losing. On one side of cable, fixed wireless access from mobile providers, with its “good enough” value proposition, has captured the bulk of broadband customers growth the past three years. On cable’s other flank, fiber-to-the-home outperforms cable, according to Ookla’s Speedtest® Connectivity Report for the United States in H1 2025, and fiber providers are holding their ground on subscribers. But cable operators are fighting back—deploying newer cable technology and reallocating frequency bands to differentiate their performance from FWA and close the gap with fiber, particularly in uplink speed and latency.