If you're shopping for home internet in Boulder, the first decision isn't really which company to call — it's which technology to buy. Boulder addresses are commonly sold three very different things under the same "internet" label: DSL over old copper phone lines, cable over the coax that once carried television, and …

If you're on CenturyLink DSL in Boulder, you're on a technology its own parent company has stopped investing in. Lumen — CenturyLink's parent — has shifted its capital toward fiber under the Quantum Fiber brand and is no longer expanding the copper DSL network. DSL isn't being shut off tomorrow, but it's a legacy …

Boulder has lived through every era of residential internet. Residents who were online in the mid-1990s remember the screech of a 56k modem and the frustration of a busy phone line. A decade later, Comcast cable had taken over most of the city. Today, Boulder has Xfinity gigabit cable, two competing fiber networks, …