Google Fiber, Aereo and why you’re going to love the gigabit future

The gigabit future is going to bring about an Internet that is at least three times faster than anything available today, and that could be good news for innovators everywhere. This goes well beyond being able to stream more movies, download more music and play more games. Technology innovators could fully realize entirely new uses for a faster Internet — ideas that are only in their infancy today, impacting areas ranging from health care and infrastructure to online learning. Faster Internet speeds create new opportunities for upstart companies to break up legacy business models in other industries.

Take Aereo, for example, which is taking live television signals and delivering them over the Web, further blurring the line between traditional and Internet TV. Thanks to a bit of technological wizardry, the company is able to offer things you might expect from your cable company, such as the ability to record live TV for later viewing — all without a cable subscription or even a television. The whole TV-over-the-Internet concept works because members of what Nielsen Co. has dubbed the "Zero TV" generation think of shows as just another form of online video. It’s hard not to see how faster connectivity speeds would give new momentum to the “Zero TV” movement and open up new opportunities for gigabit broadband providers. The big caveat in a gigabit future, though, is that it’s expensive to build out all the necessary fiber connections.