The role of video in broadband communications: enabler and enhancer of applications, or hype?

Video has been touted as the information type that will justify massive investments in public broadband multimedia networks, but it is not clear that it will serve that purpose. Applications that video enables are offered competitively by other means, and the added utility in those that video enhances might not justify the extra cost of offering it. In order to disentangle these issues, we discuss the classification of video services in broadband networks in order to determine the network requirements. The role of video services is analyzed, and video´s anticipated utility for telephony, cable-television, and Internet operators is discussed.