DALLAS - According to a study by research company Parks Associates, 33 million U.S. households will carry broadband connections of 10 Mbps or faster by 2012.
Broadband connections of at least 10 Mbps were in an estimated 5.7 million households at the end of 2007.
In order for the 2012 prediction to become a reality, a lot of change will have to occur in the U.S. market, Parks Associates said, adding that two competing factors are needed.
Increased availability of 10 Mbps-plus connections depends on the arrival of technologies like DOCSIS 3.0, Parks Associates said. Comcast has big plans for DOCSIS 3.0 this year, which could lead to downloading speeds above 100 Mbps. Other cable companies are expected to follow soon, since upgrading their networks isn't prohibitively expensive.
"Moving to DOCSIS 3.0 is not that bad of a capital investment," Larry Socher, an executive in Accenture's Communications and High Tech Operating Group, told ARS Technica. "It's a lot less painful to deploy DOCSIS 3.0 than [fiber-to-the-home] or even [fiber-to-the-node]."
The other factor is fiber. Verizon and AT&T are heavily invested in fiber-centric network upgrades, with Verizon's FiOS running it directly to homes and AT&T stopping at the node with U-Verse. Combined, the two companies' fiber projects will pass more than 30 million homes by 2010.
However, Parks Associates still sees a need for improvement. The group said broadband providers should do a better job of managing traffic and network-neutrality issues in order for 33 million households to carry 10 Mbps-plus connections by 2012.
Socher agreed with Parks Associates' assessment.
"[Broadband] operators [need to] do a better job of educating the public that ... the entire neighborhood is subsidizing one or two kids doing [peer-to-peer] traffic," he said.
Although Internet service providers have lined up to support Comcast in the Federal Communication Commission's investigation into the cable company's traffic management practices, Verizon has talked down about the bandwidth constraints faced by cable ISPs.
Socher said all broadband ISPs should be on the same page when it comes to traffic management and being transparent with their customers.
"It's in all of their interests to work together," he told ARS Technica. "Ultimately, it's going to drive value to all of them and increase the size of the pie."
Given the advent of DOCSIS 3.0 in the U.S. and the continued rollout of FiOS and U-verse, it is a real possibility that Parks Associates' 33 million-household prediction will come true, ARS Technica said.
However, ARS Technica added, 10Mbps-plus connections probably won't be spread around evenly.
In areas where telecommunications companies go head-to-head with cable companies, there probably will be a concentration of homes with super-fast broadband connections, ARS Technica said, but those living in areas with little high-speed competition are likely to be stuck with single-digit broadband speeds.
