CenturyLink says that it's trying to offer gigabit connections in more markets, but believes that the majority of its customers simply don't need anything that fast. Speaking on the company's recent earnings call presentation, CenturyLink CEO Glen Post made the case that 100 Mbps was more bandwidth than most customers need. Post even brought charts (below, left) to help him argue that 75 Mbps alone was enough to handle two 4K streams, four HD streams alongside some other Internet browsing.

The company has previously stated how gigabit service does help in one regard: it helps sell slower speeds. Numerous ISPs have noted that when customers see gigabit ads they often call in because they don't remember what their current speed even is. Gigabit often either isn't available, or the user decides that a slower, cheaper tier is good enough.

“Certainly there be users who will seek the gigabit connection, but for the vast majority of consumers, we see 100 megabits or 200 megabits as being more than sufficient to meet market demand for a number of years,” Post said.

The problem being that half or more of CenturyLink's footprint consists of customers still on last generation DSL speeds of 6 Mbps or slower.

Cincinnati Bell says the telco will pass 80,000 locations with its fiber to the home (FTTH) network by the end of this year. Speaking on a conference call after the release of its latest earnings report, the company stated it spent $20 million over the last year to deliver FTTH to 25,000 new addresses, giving the telco a 60% boost in overall FTTH coverage in greater Cincinnati.

• Adtran CEO: Broadband Boom Is Back [lightreading.com]

• Ad board to Comcast: Stop claiming you have the “fastest Internet” [arstechnica.com]

• WOW! Launches Gig Service in 5 Markets [lightreading.com]

• Verizon and T-Mobile top Speedtest carrier ranking [rcrwireless.com]

• Google delaying San Jose fiber rollout to explore a more cost-effective strategy [cnet.com]

• Charter: We haven’t activated MVNO deal with Verizon… yet [fiercewireless.com]

• Thanks to Pokemon Go, we now know intensive rivalries are not only a reality—but the defining reality of the modern competitive U.S. wireless market [multichannel.com]

• Tired of waiting for high-speed internet, farm towns build their own [pri.org]

Reports have emerged suggesting that Google Fiber has delayed deployment in Silicon Valley, potentially because it wants to deploy next-generation wireless service instead. According to the San Jose Mercury News, contracted installers scheduled to begin work on the San Jose deployment have been told to stand down, roughly three months after San Jose officials approved a major construction plan to bring Google Fiber to the city.

As promised, new Cablevision owner Altice is getting right to work trimming the fat at the New York City metro area cable and broadband provider. Newsday recently noted that Altice released roughly 100 employees at the cable company's Beth Page, NY headquarters.

Posting its first earnings report since merging with Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks, Charter Communications noted that it's not immune to customer defections, losing 152,000 pay TV subscribers during the second quarter. Note that's better than the 170,000 Charter lost during the second quarter of last year, but it's still a major blow during a quarter that has seen major net TV subscriber losses across the board.

The New Jersey Board of Public Utilities held a hearing last week in New Jersey, the latest attempt to hold Verizon accountable for its neglect of unwanted DSL and traditional phone customers throughout the state. Last year you'll recall that New Jersey state leaders took a lot of heat for letting Verizon off the hook for a 1993 requirement that provided the company with subsidies and tax cuts -- in exchange for a promise to wire all of the state with 45 Mbps fixed-line broadband by 2010.

AT&T has been fined once again by the FCC, this time for helping drug dealers run a directory assistance scam on the company's own fixed-line phone customers. According to the FCC announcement (pdf), AT&T allowed scammers to charge customers approximately $9 per month for a sham directory assistance service, a scam only discovered after the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) was investigating the scammers for drug-related crimes and money laundering.

During the DEA's investigation, the agency uncovered documents detailing the cramming scam by Discount Directory, Inc.

Wide Open West (aka "WOW!) has announced that the company will soon expand gigabit broadband availability into five additional markets. According to a company announcement, this expansion will cover thousands of customers in Huntsville and Auburn, Alabama; Evansville, Indiana; Knoxville, Tennessee; and Grosse Pointe Shores, Michigan.

FCC boss Tom Wheeler says that protection your broadband privacy should not be a luxury option. Wheeler was responding to reports last week noting that Comcast is considering charging broadband subscribers more to protect their own privacy.

• Hulu ends free streaming in bid to boost subscriptions [nypost.com]

• Not So Fast on Streaming [lightreading.com]

• What the broadband home of the future may look like [usatoday.com]

• Locally Owned Internet Is an Antidote for the Digital Divide [technologyreview.com]

• The FCC Needs to Make Broadband Affordable for Schools, Hospitals, and Businesses [slate.com]

• Amid MVNO flameouts like Solavei, Consumer Cellular is challenging Verizon, AT&T [fiercewireless.com]

• U.S. wireless industry’s postpaid churn at an all-time low [fiercewireless.com]

• Comcast wants to be the Tesla of cable [philly.com]