"So the rise of private networks (provided by large connectivity suppliers like Enron, Exodus, Qwest, Teleglobe, and others), linked with large hosting services (like Akamai, RBN, Yahoo, Digital Island, Burst.com, iBEAM and others) will continue to grow as increasing numbers of private IP Media networks jump over the traditional Internet. Large media providers like ABC or Time Warner will pay other IP Media Hosting Services to deliver their content where they cannot use their own infrastructure.' Because bandwidth demand continues to outstrip supply (especially in the last mile) by about 3 to 1, we can only expect the growth of private networks, edge caching, and other QoS tools to continue."

But Who Will Win?

Ah, the last mile. That's where, traditionally, the tortoise beats the hare. It seems that still applies. We asked Schultz specifically, who remarked:

"We spent a huge amount of time on that subject last month -- cable, satellite, DSL -- as well as looking what the competitive local exchange carriers are doing, wireless and so forth. There are huge investments going on in that area because the demand is so great. The demand right now is among the early adopters who want to go to broadband, and the suppliers are still having a hard time really keeping up with demand in terms of installing things and making it work. And it will continue to be ongoing."

Cable, satellite, DSL - the choices for getting good broadband streaming in your neighborhood are increasing daily. So who/what do you pick? As a consumer or a business, that could make or break you. Says the report:

"DSL and cable broadband will continue to slug it out all the way to the bank, as each helps to develop the other's market. Recent advances made by competitive DSL carriers (often CLECs, or Competitive Local Exchange Carriers) show that DSL will be the driving force in broadband deployment in markets where ILECs and CLECs compete the hardest; and where DSL and Cable Modems compete the hardest. In response to the DSL/CLEC threat, some incumbent telephone companies (ILECs) have become highly aggressive in deploying broadband. This makes for better competition."

That wasn't exactly clear to us (on Long Island we have Cablevision's Optimum cable modem and it's great) so we asked Schultz to further elucidate:

"It depends on what neighborhood you're in. If you're getting cable service you probably have what's called a full HFC (fiber), where they've upgraded the whole system. So in your neighborhood you're pretty lucky because your cable system (Cablevision Optimum) was one of the earlier ones to do that. Not everybody is that lucky that they can have a reliable cable modem service right now. That's why we say the more competition there is between cable and DSL for broadband, the better off the consumer is. That's happening pretty much around North America and starting to happen elsewhere. But the last mile is a big issue."