Is YouTube the new TV?

Recently, when we have had people over to house for dinner or when at someone else's home, I notice that a common topic of discussion is what is showing on YouTube. Everyone has a story about some usually goofy thing they saw recently on the video site. Anecdotally, several people have shared that they often just spend a little time in the evening goofing off on YouTube. This is usually followed by the admission they don't turn on the TV much anymore.

Communities who think that DSL and wireless services are adequate with respect to bandwidth are going to be very disappointed, as neither technology is capable of delivering large amounts of video to thousands or ten of thousands of residential customers, no matter what you read about the amazing abilities of WiMax to bring world peace, solve human aging, and deliver massive bandwidth to everyone at the same time. WiMax is a terrific technology that is much better than WiFi, but the amount of actual bandwidth that WiMax will actually be able to deliver to residential and business users is not going to support heavy IP-TV use (i.e. YouTube, movies on demand, TV show downloads, etc.). WiMax has the capability of reaching more premises by virtue of being able to get a signal over longer distances than WiFi. But as you extend the reach of a wireless signal, you also spread the amount of usable bandwidth over a larger number of subscribers, in most cases. This means the amount of per subscriber bandwidth may not increase significantly.

Wireless is part of a complete solution, but fiber is needed alongside it to meet the fast-growing video demands of residences and businesses.