The Finnish firm Teleste has announced new networking equipment that will allow cable modem service providers to offer much higher speeds--up to as high as 100 megabits per second. If this equipment works (it is in early testing right now), it could give U.S. cable companies a crushing lead over rival phone companies, who are stuck with the distance-sensitive DSL.
But the article also supports what I have been saying for a long time--that HD TV will drive broadband needs, with a single channel of HD television requiring as much as 20 megabits/second. But you need a network that can deliver three channels of HD TV to a household, which puts you in the neighborhood of 60 megabits/second before anyone tries to answer the phone, download a song, surf the Web, or listen to the radio.