That's interesting. I knew coax wasn't symmetrical but never know why.

I mean, they have the money. They could build their own fiber network. They already have the permits, pole access, equipment, maintenance network, distribution network, utility boxes, etc. that they could leverage to build a truly modern network infrastructure in parallel to their outdated coaxial one if they wanted to stay relevant in this century, but they don't. They stick with their shitty cable and its shitty uplink limitations and let much smaller third parties spend all that money to get their own permits, equipment, etc. and build their own fiber networks that can actually deliver the performance people want. Then Spectrum cries like the crybaby they are when everyone abandons their ancient infrastructure when competition arrives. Hell no I don't want to stick around for your lame "gigabit" cable with a pathetic 20mbps uplink.

I had to yell at them on the phone to cancel when I switched to symmetric gigabit fiber last summer after over a decade of 200/20 Spectrum. They said "but wait we can offer gigabit too" and I said that what they were selling was theoretically impossible to match what I had. Garbage company selling inferior product. I'm glad they're starting to see real competition in more and more places from smaller fiber companies.

It is a consequence of how the networks were physically built when providers thought that cable and download speeds were all anyone needed; it's not just a software switch they can flip if they wanted to.

This is true of so much of our infrastructure in the US.

Not bandwidth speeds specifically but just aging infrastructure that was built out long ago and not properly maintained and/or updated over time