Broadband's Future: Where Will We Be in 10 Years?

Our 10 government, industry and nonprofit representatives answer to what extent universal access to broadband will be accomplished in 10 years.

Joanne Hovis: The prognosis for the next 10 years is relatively good, particularly for metropolitian areas. Incumbent phone and cable companies respond [to competition] by investing and offering better and more affordable services. The key question for progress in the next 10 years will be how much new investment goes into building competitive networks, thus stimulating innovation, competition and new broadband opportunity.
John Jones: As entertainment has become more and more a driver of data usage, the consumer market is really wanting more speeds where they don’t have buffering and pausing, whether they’re watching a movie or gaming or whatever. So the demand for speed is really a key driver in today’s market and that will probably continue to increase over time as more and more robust applications start riding over the Internet.
Robert Bell: Not everybody is going to be online and not everybody wants to be online, and that’s fine, but I think in 10 years from now, we’ll be pretty close to saturation.

[Joanne Hovis is a member of the Benton Foundation's Board of Directors]