Why cable should bank on broadband and thank Netflix

With initiatives like TV Everywhere and broadband usage caps, is the cable industry biting the hands of the streaming video companies that are driving its most vibrant prospect for growth? Now that Time Warner Cable, AT&T and Verizon have kicked off the latest round of quarterly earnings reports by multi-channel operators late last month — a series that continues Wednesday when Comcast releases its first-quarter numbers — a case can be made that the cable industry has a better future in providing broadband services rather than TV/video bundles. And they have Netflix and YouTube to thank for that.