High-Definition Video to Drive Future U.S. Broadband Growth

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High-Definition Video to Drive Future U.S. Broadband Growth

6:45 am on March 8, 2008 | Category: Web Services, Telecom Services, Internet, Television

Close to 33 million U.S. households will have broadband connections of 10-Mbps or faster by 2012, according to a recent Parks Associates report, and the vast majority of these customers will use the web for high-definition video and other advanced media services.

As of 2007, only 5.7 million American homes had access to these ultra high-speed connections.

“Until recently, telecom operators’ aggressive deployment of deep fiber services and the competitive reaction from cable MSOs fueled the growth of high-bandwidth broadband services,” said Parks Associates’ director of broadband and gaming, Yuanzhe Cai. “As consumer excitement over pure bandwidth subsides, however, service providers will have to deliver appealing, bandwidth-intensive, value-added services such as HD video streaming and content place shifting in order to retain customers and increase (average revenue per user).”

With bandwidth becoming a commodity, internet service providers will need to give their customers solid reasons to pay for additional capacity. This will be necessary to spur continued growth in America’s broadband service sector.

“If high-bandwidth broadband services fail to reach mass-market consumers, the United States may lose its competitive edge in the next round of technology innovation,” Cai noted. “Such a scenario would be unpleasant.”