question: If the infrastructure 15 years ago is still being used by cable companies today. Then how can they provide such higher internet speeds?
comment: Let's say you have a 7 lane interstate. At each end there is a toll booth. In the past payments were processed manually and there was a receipt that had to print, but the printers were slow. Only do much traffic could get through. Fast forward to the future where you pay with the touch of a button and get an instant receipt or pre-pay before you get there and just zoom right through. Ignoring I know nothing about toll booths, this is basically why. The info in the past couldn't be processed as quickly, so there is always a bottleneck. Today it's much faster. I'm not sure if we've reached the physical limitations of the current infrastructure though. I know we've come up with better ways of transporting the info such as the digital equivalent of carpooling or taking the bus. Only so far you can go before you'll have to expand the interstate or change to a better mode of transport. Like bullet trains...or Elon Musk's idea of the hyper train system. What is it called again?
passages: Section::::Fiber optics.
  
  When EPB first turned on the fiber-optic network for internet, customers were getting up to ten times the speed to which they were accustomed. Even those with lower-priced internet tiers saw their speeds nearly double. The service now has reached up to 10 Gbit/s. Using fiber-optic technology is much cheaper, since the price of internet went down almost $300 per month when they started using the new technology.
   BULLET::::- There will be a twofold increase in broadband speeds
  
  Section::::Factors that led to the Zettabyte Era.
  
  There are many factors that brought about the rise of the Zettabyte Era. Increases in video streaming, mobile phone usage, broadband speeds and data center storage are all contributing factors that led to the rise (and continuation) of data consumption, creation and replication.
  
  Section::::Factors that led to the Zettabyte Era.:Increased video streaming.
   This excess backbone capacity exists in spite of the trend of increasing per-user data rates and overall quantity of data. Initially, only the inter-LAN connections were high speed. End-users used existing telephone lines and modems, which were capable of data rates of only a few hundred bit/s. Now almost all end users enjoy access at 100 or more times those early rates.
  
  Section::::Economical information transfer.
   High-bandwidth applications need significantly higher broadband-speeds. Certain broadband technologies including Fiber-to-the-home (FTTH), high-speed digital subscriber line (DSL) and cable broadband are paving the way for increased broadband speeds. FTTH can offer broadband-speeds that are ten times (or even a hundred times) faster than DSL or cable.
  
  Section::::Internet service providers in the Zettabyte Era.
   In statistical terms, in 2000 there were just under 150 million dial-up subscriptions in the 34 OECD countries and fewer than 20 million broadband subscriptions. By 2004, broadband and dial-up were roughly equal at 130 million each. In 2010, in the OECD countries, over 90% of the Internet access subscriptions used broadband and dial-up subscriptions had declined to fewer than 30 million. 
   Commercial products were released while the standard was still in draft. By the time the standard was ratified lower speed versions were already growing out of use. Fibre Channel was the first serial storage transport to achieve gigabit speeds where it saw wide adoption, and its success grew with each successive speed. Fibre Channel has doubled in speed every few years since 1996.
  
  Fibre Channel has seen active development since its inception, with numerous speed improvements on a variety of underlying transport media. The following table shows the progression of native Fibre Channel speeds:
   In its report released in February, 2013, the Federal Communications Commission noted significant advances in satellite Internet performance. The FCC's Measuring Broadband America report also ranked the major ISPs by how close they came to delivering on advertised speeds. In this category, satellite Internet topped the list, with 90% of subscribers seeing speeds at 140% or better than what was advertised.
  
  Section::::Efficiency increases.:Reducing satellite latency.
   Traditionally the divide has been measured in terms of the existing numbers of subscriptions and digital devices ("have and have-not of subscriptions"). Recent studies have measured the digital divide not in terms of technological devices, but in terms of the existing bandwidth per individual (in kbit/s per capita). As shown in the Figure on the side, the digital divide in kbit/s is not monotonically decreasing, but re-opens up with each new innovation. For example, "the massive diffusion of narrow-band Internet and mobile phones during the late 1990s" increased digital inequality, as well as "the initial introduction of broadband DSL and cable modems during 2003–2004 increased levels of inequality". This is because a new kind of connectivity is never introduced instantaneously and uniformly to society as a whole at once, but diffuses slowly through social networks. As shown by the Figure, during the mid-2000s, communication capacity was more unequally distributed than during the late 1980s, when only fixed-line phones existed. The most recent increase in digital equality stems from the massive diffusion of the latest digital innovations (i.e. fixed and mobile broadband infrastructures, e.g. 3G and fiber optics FTTH). As shown in the Figure, Internet access in terms of bandwidth is more unequally distributed in 2014 as it was in the mid-1990s.
   There have also been dramatic changes in telephone communication behind the scenes. Starting with the operation of TAT-8 in 1988, the 1990s saw the widespread adoption of systems based on optical fibers. The benefit of communicating with optic fibers is that they offer a drastic increase in data capacity. TAT-8 itself was able to carry 10 times as many telephone calls as the last copper cable laid at that time and today's optic fibre cables are able to carry 25 times as many telephone calls as TAT-8. This increase in data capacity is due to several factors: First, optic fibres are physically much smaller than competing technologies. Second, they do not suffer from crosstalk which means several hundred of them can be easily bundled together in a single cable. Lastly, improvements in multiplexing have led to an exponential growth in the data capacity of a single fibre.
   Global Internet usage has increased significantly across the world from 12,881,000 hosts in 1998 to 908,585,739 hosts in 2012. Internet use has surged with the introduction of mobile devices and tablet computing. Internet access has also changed during this time frame from 56kbit/s dial-up to high-speed bandwidth access at 100Mbit/s or higher. The increase in Internet users and increase in access bandwidth is a contributing factor to the Internet Rush Hour.
  
  The table below shows the big picture of world internet usage versus the population.
  
  Section::::Reasons.:Infrastructure.
   BULLET::::- Quebec: As of 2005, PLC communication technology developed by Ariane Controls is being installed inside and outside existing buildings to control lights and other energy-hungry devices. The cheap devices allow energy consumption to be better managed, and so save much energy and bring a clear return on investment.
  
  BULLET::::- Western Europe:
  
  BULLET::::- Sweden: Vattenfall is using PLC technology at 1200 baud for automatic meter reading based on an Iskraemeco product.
  
  BULLET::::- Central and Eastern Europe, and Eurasia:
   Many technologies are available for wide area network links. Examples include circuit-switched telephone lines, radio wave transmission, and optical fiber. New developments in technologies have successively increased transmission rates. In ca. 1960, a 110 bit/s (bits per second) line was normal on the edge of the WAN, while core links of 56 kbit/s to 64 kbit/s were considered fast. As of 2014, households are connected to the Internet with Dial-Up, ADSL, Cable, Wimax, 4G or fiber. The speeds that people can currently use range from 28.8 kbit/s through a 28K modem over a telephone connection to speeds as high as 100 Gbit/s over an Ethernet 100GBaseY connection.
   In March 2014, the FCC approved "Phase II" of the transition to the Connect America Fund, adding 1.8 billion a year in funding, and clarifying the specifics of the funding process. Under the framework the FCC approved, incumbent carriers have priority access to subsidies, but if the funds are declined, the funds are allocated by a competitive bidding process. The FCC also proposed upping the minimum speed requirement from 4Mbit/s to 10Mbit/s. In May 2014, the 10th circuit court of appeals upheld the shift in funds in the face of a legal challenge by telephone companies.
   In 2004, with the launch of Anik F2, the first high throughput satellite, a class of next-generation satellites providing improved capacity and bandwidth became operational. More recently, high throughput satellites such as ViaSat's ViaSat-1 satellite in 2011 and HughesNet's Jupiter in 2012 have achieved further improvements, elevating downstream data rates from 1–3 Mbit/s up to 12–15Mbit/s and beyond. Internet access services tied to these satellites are targeted largely to rural residents as an alternative to Internet service via dial-up, ADSL or classic FSSes.
   BULLET::::- 2011: Second optical fibre path to Asia commissioned, from Sydney to Singapore via Guam, increasing AARNet's direct capacity to Asia to 1.2 Gbit/s
  
  BULLET::::- 2012: International capacity increased to a total of 90 Gbit/s trans-Pacific plus a further 3.1 Gbit/s in two diverse routes to Asia
  
  BULLET::::- 2013: AARNet4 announced, which is upgrading the AARNet WDM national network capacity to multiple parallel 100 Gbit/s channels, ultimately 80 channels (total 8 Tbit/s).
  
  Section::::AARNet generations.
  
  AARNet1 (1989–1997): Australia's first Internet:
  
  BULLET::::- AARNet-operated layer 3 routers; one PoP per capital city
  
  BULLET::::- national backbone: carrier-provided (Telstra) inter-PoP transmission capacity
  
  BULLET::::- carrier-provided trans-Pacific transmission capacity
   Traditional communication companies that now carry telephone services, are moving closer to universal service. As a result, the new market improves the utilization of the existing infrastructure, making it more cost efficient. Further, many non-traditional infrastructures, including cable television and electricity distribution networks, can now carry telephone service, moving countries closer to universal service and improving the utilization of existing infrastructure, allowing them to provide ICT services to communities that earlier had none. The ability of cable television infrastructure to carry converged services has driven investment in fiber optic networks by telecommunications operators. Such service provision brings with it the potential for significant social and economic transformation to otherwise underserved areas.
   There had been some early adopters of the hybrid fiber-wireless approach to provide Gbit/s services to customers. One of those ISP's was Webpass, a company founded in 2003 in San Francisco as a wireless ISP focusing on buildings in big cities. Since then, Webpass had been increasing the speeds along with improved wireless technologies. By 2015, Webpass offered 1 Gbit/s connections to commercial customers, however, the residential customers were limited to speeds of up to 500 Mbit/s to share the 1 Gbit/s wireless link among many residents in the same building. The company utilized a combination of various licensed and unlicensed bands.
   By 2005, the core network used packet over SONET links at 10 Gbit/s. In 2009, ESnet received $62 million in American Research and Recovery Act (ARRA) funding from the Department of Energy Office of Science to invest in its next-generation infrastructure to provide the necessary support for research discovery in this new era of data-intensive science. After three years of planning and deployment, ESnet5 – ESnet’s fifth generation network – launched in November 2012. The new network provided an immediate tenfold increase in bandwidth to DOE research sites at the same cost as providing 10G connections – with the ability to now scale to 44 times the current capacity. ESnet is currently working on its next-generation upgrade named ESnet6.
   Bigblu Broadband Plc began with offering Ka band satellite internet. On this type of connection broadband download and upload speeds were slow and prices were high. In 2010 the arrival of KA-SAT, Ka band satellite communications brought significantly higher speeds, better throughput's and a pricing structure more accessible to the consumer and small business user.
   BULLET::::- TMCNet, February 12, 2009, "IBBS Plans New Cable Broadband Solutions, Expands to Latin America, Microsoft SMB Featured Article "
  
  BULLET::::- TMCNet, June 29, 2009, "IBBS Wins Technology Pioneer Award"
  
  BULLET::::- NPRG, September 15, 2009, "Conversations with Communications Innovators: David Keil, Chief Executive Officer at IBBS"
  
  BULLET::::- CAAS TMCNET.com, October 28, 2009, "IBBS Intros Broadband Network Services Platform, Bandwidth Management, Birth Certificate Tools"
  
  BULLET::::- TMCNet, December 18, 2009,"IBBS Names Vice President of North American Sales"
  
  BULLET::::- TMCNet, January 13, 2010,"IBBS Commercial Services Wins Cable Product of the Year Award"
   Since 1990, when optical-amplification systems became commercially available, the telecommunications industry has laid a vast network of intercity and transoceanic fiber communication lines. By 2002, an intercontinental network of 250,000 km of submarine communications cable with a capacity of 2.56 Tb/s was completed, and although specific network capacities are privileged information, telecommunications investment reports indicate that network capacity has increased dramatically since 2004.
  
  Section::::History.
   PW technology is a hot topic because it furnishes greater operational efficiency while simultaneously enabling a smooth migration strategy to a single converged network, without stranding any revenue streams from legacy services.
   Banks are trying to innovate and use digital tools to improve their traditional business.
  
  Governments are investing in infrastructure. In 2013, the Australian National Broadband Network, for instance, aimed to provide a 1 GB/sec download speed fiber-based broadband to 93% of the population over ten years.
  
  Section::::Energy use.
   The broadband technologies in widest use are ADSL and cable Internet access. Newer technologies include VDSL and optical fibre extended closer to the subscriber in both telephone and cable plants. Fibre-optic communication, while only recently being used in premises and to the curb schemes, has played a crucial role in enabling broadband Internet access by making transmission of information at very high data rates over longer distances much more cost-effective than copper wire technology.
   Following the formation of the unified company, over €130M was spent on network infrastructure, including fibre and microwave links between regions. This meant customers who were using CATV in the "Community Antenna" sense now generally got a significantly higher quality signal, although poor transmission networks and high compression on microwave links caused MPEG-esque motion problems, even on analogue links.
  
presuppositions: Cable infrastructure is the bottleneck for internet speed.
corrections: Internet speed was bottlenecked by the processing at the beginning and end, not the cables.
raw_presuppositions: If our current cable infrastructure was created 15 years ago, and said infrastructure is still being used today, then internet speed should not be as fast as it is today. Cable infrastructure is too old to provide such high internet speeds. Cable infrastructure is the bottleneck for internet speed.
raw_corrections: Internet speed of the past was not limited by the infrastructure of the cable, but the processing speed used within it.  Internet speed was bottlenecked by the processing at the beginning and end, not the cables. Internet speed was bottlenecked by the processing at the beginning and end, not the cables.