This article discusses what I have been saying for a long time: Video is finally turning broadband into a business. For reasons that are really no one's fault, the broadband business is upside down. If you are in the business of selling Internet access--dial up, wireless, DSL, cable, fiber, satellite--you make the most money if your customers never use your product. You make the least money if your customers sit in front of their computers all day long fooling around on YouTube and Joost.
It is a lose-lose situation. Internet providers lose money if their customers love the service, and customers lose because if they love the service, the service can slow to a crawl or become nearly unusable.
The problem is that there is no feedback mechanism between use and cost that informs customers about the real cost of the service. Under the current system, users pay a fixed cost and appear to get unlimited service. Demand is decoupled from supply because of this inadequate pricing feedback.
The solution is to get away from selling bandwidth and to start selling services, whose prices are more directly tied to the real costs of providing the service. Open service provider broadband networks are going to emerge quickly as the preferred business model for broadband because they pay their way, and local governments that help develop them can get new revenue streams from telecom while lowering costs for public and private customers.