DSL

Beginning in approximately 1989 cable and telephone providers set out to conquer the market, which is now known as the “broadband services” market. At first, many of the technologies were developed as a way for telephone companies to compete with cable network operators through enabling delivery of VOD (video on demand) to subscribers – it was supposed to be the “killer app”. Early in the development of the technologies it was realized that the network infrastructure, which existed would not be able to deliver the speeds necessary to supply the envisioned broadband services. Vendors rushed to lay miles of high-speed gigabit fiber cable in the core of their networks to support the expected demand. While this vision never did materialize (yet?), the effort was not wasted. Several shifts in the social, demographic, and institutional trends have provided the first real application for the broadband services: corporations stepped up their decentralization efforts, more people beg...