President Bush said we'll all be connected by 2007, Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi said Democrats will ensure that will happen within 5 years. Certainly broadband coverage is growing rapidly, but the role of Government seems irrelevant to that "surge." Many technologies, explained and defined in this report, contribute. How they do so, and how quickly we get to "universal" broadband will be driven by usefulness, technological improvement, and (not least) market savvy companies.
Broadband access in the typical US household is on a steady growth trend. Fueled both by consumer demand for entertainment and communication as well as governmental regulatory and economic incentives, companies at all levels of the broadband services and infrastructure value chain are developing new technologies and enabling new services that will continue to push the US broadband market forward over the next 4-6 years.
The development of wired broadband network infrastructures in fact enable the deployment of wireless technologies. As an example, the development of fiber optic infrastructure offers a market driver for the introduction of WiMAX in developed countries.
There is substantial competition to WiMAX. Traditional, or wired, broadband technologies offer direct competition to fixed WiMAX and are being fueled by governmental encouragement on a global scale. The deployment of IPv6 on a global scale will mark a new era for humanity, at least those connected to technology. In order for various countries to participate in the increased security afforded as a byproduct of IPv6, the internet infrastructure technologies must be in place. These are marketed as broadband services to the consumer and the development of triple- and quadruple-play offerings which combine television broadcast, interactive content delivery, internet services, and voice communications capabilities. In this respect wired technologies such as optical fiber are in fact in competition with mobile WiMAX, in spite of the drastic difference in features each technology enables.
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