It's funny how you can better connect the dots when you let news age for a little while and then start talking about it. Vint Cerf, the "godfather of the web" has predicted that TV as we know it will be killed off by the Internet. He posits that because at least 85% of content doesn't need to be watched live, it's therefore an ideal candidate for on-demand systems such as the Internet. We're already witnessing a microcosm of this as TV viewers use TiVos, torrents and TV on DVD to watch television on their own schedule. IBM has already confirmed an exodus from television to the Internet that signals the end of traditional media as we know it.
The Internet, however, might be a victim of its own success. With the proliferation of video options and the move towards HD formats, ABI Research and Cisco Systems are predicting dire consequences if we don't upgrade our infrastructure to be ahead of the curve. The hardest hit systems will be cable operators already hampered by using aging coax for the last mile. Though P2P is being discussed as an option to this bandwidth crunch, users are already severely hampered on their upstream bandwidth thus limiting this as a viable option.
No matter how you slice it, all roads lead back to using high-capacity fiber optic networks. You know, like the one UTOPIA is building.
