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this post was submitted on 23 Jul 2026
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Not to defend spectrum, but there is an actual reason for this besides malice.
Coax cable internet uses analog switching and routing between you and your ISPs first Ethernet hop. It's basically a series of unconfigurable hardware low-pass and high-pass filters to ensure that upload traffic and download traffic flow cleanly.
When cable internet started and these systems were installed in your neighborhood, a range of low-frequency (low-bandwidth) channels were selected for uploads, and a range of high-frequency (high-bandwidth) channels were selected for downloads, going off the assumption that more people wanted downloads than anything else.
Fast-forward to today, and the ISPs don't really have any choice but to sell you the asymmetry that they installed 20-30 years ago. The only way to redirect the flow and assignment of channels would be to rip out and replace all of those analog filters, and they're not going to do that because grandma isn't going to go without cable for 3 weeks. Grandma will call, get angry, and pick a new cable provider. Grandma is by far their most consistent and profitable customer.
I think there is actually a choice in there somewhere.
And in case it needs to be spelled out, it's upgrading the infra to offer better speeds. But they have no incentive to do so because that benefits only the customer.
They just run a new fiber line to every customer that says "I need symmetric speeds, please".
If you're willing to pay they probably will, but it's something that's generally very expensive, so not something they advertise. If you're serious about it, look into business offerings.
Paying the ISP to run a new fiber cable yourself is 10-50k.
The ISP can do this at a better price if they do a neighborhood all at once due to economies of scale.
The US government already paid the ISP to run fiber in like the 90s. They should give the money back with interest or lay the fucking fiber