Broadband Internet access via TV cables can reach 100 Megabits per second as early as next year, 50 times faster than the average broadband speeds now offered to cable TV homes, a Finnish firm said on Wednesday. Similar data transmission speeds are possible over fibre networks, but these cost much more for the operators to build.
"This is a cost-efficient technology as we use the cable TV networks which are already in place," Jukka Rinnevaara, Chief Executive of small-cap Finnish broadband equipment maker Teleste, told Reuters. Teleste, whose rivals include big U.S. firms Scientific Atlanta and Cisco Systems Inc. , said it would early next year bring to the market its Ethernet to the Home product which will give consumers access to 100Mb/s speed.