Competition is a wonderful thing. As NetFlix and Blockbuster battle each other over customers for mail-based DVD movies, Blockbuster has purchased a company called MovieLink to compete with the NetFlix movie download service. The acquisition is particularly interesting because MovieLink has license agreements with several major movie studios, which are worth a lot more than any technology and systems the company might have in place.
I still get blank stares from a lot of people when I tell them that TV is moving rapidly towards delivery over a broadband network, but I sat in a conference room yesterday at a relatively small independent phone company and watched the firm show off their IP-TV service, which they can deliver to some of their customers immediately via their ADSL2+ service. But even more interesting was the the fact they they mentioned they were planning to private label the IPTV service for other providers to deliver on fiber to the home networks.
You can't download movies or watch TV on any affordable wireless system, and even the new buzz wireless buzzphrase--"700 Mhz"--is not up to the task. It is video in all forms, and especially High Definition video, that is going to ensure that fiber to the home and to the business is going to be essential infrastructure for personal and business use.