Time Warner Cable is bringing its ultra-fast broadband Internet service to Los Angeles. The company recently said they can offer Internet speeds of up to one gigabit per second to residents, businesses and government offices by 2016, far faster than what they currently offer anywhere else.
The move comes in response to a document released by the city back in April asking for information from companies on how to go about building an ultra-fast citywide broadband network. But as BGR points out, there's a bit more to the story once you start to dig a bit deeper.
As the publication points out, Time Warner Cable has had quite the change of heart as of late. Last year, a TWC executive said they didn't see the need to deliver Google Fiber-like speeds to customers and earlier this year, a TWC spokesperson noted that not everybody needs the capacity that a direct fiber network would provide.
What's more, National Cable & Telecommunications Association CEO Michael Powell dismissed the idea of fiber networks as little more than an irrelevant exercise in bragging rights less than two years ago.
So, why the sudden change of heart?
Cities are getting fed up with cable companies not wanting to update their infrastructure and are threatening to build their own fiber networks. Cable companies like TWC and Comcast are then put in a tough spot and as we see here with the former, they ultimtaely have little choice but to give in and invest in building networks with faster speeds.