The Last Mile: Streaming’s Bottleneck

It should be noted, though, that South Korea did have a pair of significant advantages over many of the countries who wish to use their success as a model for future initiatives. First off, 70% of South Korea’s population is concentrated in seven large cities. Second, Kepco, the public power utility, had already laid miles of fiber optics years earlier for its own purposes.

In the end, it will all come down to content providers’ giving content consumers a reason to want and/or need super-fast connections to the Internet, even if those connections don’t yet exist. "Until somebody comes up with a way of offering something like pay-per-view in a cost-effective, timely manner that requires broadband, we’re going to see broadband [adoption] slow down," says Hayes. Specifically, he’s anxious to see how Apple might translate its success with music distribution into a viable method of monetizing and transmitting video via the Internet.

At the same time, contrary to popular belief, premium video content may not end up being the driving force of fiber development. For instance, in South Korea, the online gaming market has become a phenomenon that’s not only generating revenue; it’s changing the way that South Koreans interact socially. Unfortunately, the Catch-22 of ultrabroadband’s needing content to drive adoption and high-quality content needing ultrabroadband to reach consumers has become an unanswerable chicken-and-egg dilemma.

Between the lack of fiber-based business models and all of the legal and political obstacles to bringing fiber optic to the home, Hayes doesn’t foresee a mass deployment of fiber optic cable any time in the near future. "What appears to be happening is that the need and the demand are converging, and the timing is right," says Hayes. Although, "it’s going to take a long time" before fiber reaches the majority of American homes, he argues. He sees 20 years as a bare minimum, with 50 being a more realistic estimate of how long it will take to lay the necessary miles of fiber optic cable.