A year ago at this time I was splitting time between Light Reading’s Future of Broadband conference and Streaming Media East. I barely covered the conference at the time because it was so technical, laden with acronyms like GPON, EPON and FTTH, but I came away with the following thoughts:

We aren’t there yet but networks are moving toward smart gateways and routers that will personalize the digital media experience for each user across platforms and standards.

The future is a universal cross-platform personalized media experience allowing users to consume content on any device combined with relevant advertising based on their history.

Last year’s conference focused on video as the future of broadband because as Light Reading Chief Analyst Graham Finnie put it this morning “it’s a much more flexible means to deliver video.”

This year, Finnie spoke more about the two way experiences that can be delivered (think applications) as well as the emergence of mobile broadband. Video has not taken a back seat, but it’s no longer the end all of broadband.

Above: Broadband Penetration, EOY 2007 (Source: LightReading)

Tags: Future of Broadband, Light Reading

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 13th, 2008 at 8:50 am and is filed under Events, IPTV, News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.