"It's not just the codecs," he continued, "it's the infrastructure and the edge-caching. There's a huge amount of investment that's going on in edge-caching. That means that companies like Akamai, [SolidSpeed - editor] and Digital Island are setting up special private networks all across the country and that's going to enrich the experience as well, so the bottom line as time marches on there will be a richer experience based on the individual's preferences. That could be an alphanumeric experience or a graphic-intensive one or a streaming media experience, and there will be more diversity rather than less. That's what we call personalization of media. You're seeing a lot of that in cable and satellite right now, the same trend. That means people will have more choice, better choice, better depth."

High Bandwidth's Hidden Costs

That should gladden the heart of many with what often seems a pokey-slow 56k phone connection.

Nevertheless, broadband is ultimately the way to go - so why don't we all have it right away? The news here may not be so good. Touts the report:

"If bandwidth were so plentiful, why do prices stay so high? The answers are clear:

"First, backbone bandwidth is far different from last mile bandwidth. Last mile bandwidth requires expensive installation of new pipes, new easement agreements with rights of way holders, and expensive installation into homes.

"Second, in Quality of Service (QoS), you get what you pay for. Clean, reliable, consistent, manageable, and scalable bandwidth is not cheap today, nor will it be for the next 5- 10 years.

"While new freeways fill up with more cars and SUVs that did not even exist before the freeway systems came along, so also new broadband systems fill up quickly with people wanting to download the video of the latest fishing trip or a house they are trying to sell. Even if everyone in the U.S. and Europe and Asia had a fiber optic connection into his/her house, the demand for more unique content and even movies over the Web would clog the choke-points of the Internet, just like freeways and major intersections do during rush hour. The reason is that infrastructure is not just pipes; it is also made up of routers and switches, and limited capacity servers that slow it down.