100 Mbps Inevitable; Only Question is Price

NTT long has been the "gold standard" for residential bandwidth. But Verizon has closed the gap, suggesting that 100 Mbps is destined to become a common access speed.

The issue is how long it might take before such speeds are affordable.

To be sure, most of that bandwidth is needed for one simple reason: entertainment video. In its own analysis, Verizon has estimated that current and future needs for virtually all other applications top out at about 15 Mbps symmetrical bandwidth.

Beyond that, it is network-hosted applications and new forms of video that require higher bandwidth. Since it delivers linear video using a separate wavelength, Verizon thinks it really only needs about 15 Mbps downstream to support on-demand video.

But there's little question what happens if three-dimensional TV is commercialized. Then 75 Mbps might be required to deliver one stream.