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Box 1: What do we really needall this broadband capacity for?Chapter 2The debate continues as to whether or not consumers really needGigabit speeds. Demand for faster speeds continues to grow. Asspeeds increase however (Figure 3), it is likely that new applicationsand services will adapt to utilize all the newly available bandwidth.Today, there are still not many consumer apps and services thatreally need Gigabit speeds, but such services will arise, judging bythe number of accelerators popping up in Gigabit-enabled cities.Besides new, bandwidth-hungry services, another demand driveris simultaneous mass demand for existing services. According toCiena, if 10% of New York City’s 8 million residents wished to streama movie simultaneously, the capacity of infrastructure needed wouldbe around 1.6 Terabits per second 12 , sufficient to overload existingnetworks. Meeting this demand with existing technologies can be costly.However, failure to provide Terabit capacity could result in lower qualityplaybacks with pixelation, stuttering, jitter and pauses – somethingthat sophisticated modern Internet users may find unacceptable.Various broadband mediums (e.g., copper, fibre, wireless, cable)offer significant upgrades in bandwidth, including Gigabit speeds.Some make more sense than others – for example, in terms of costor time to market. Operators make network upgrade decisions basedon the age of the existing network, cost, competition, and demandfor which services. However, the number one priority for everyoperator should be to make broadband 100% available, whether fixedor mobile. The UN also calls for broadband to also be affordable,which may mean that not everyone needs, or should have, Gigabitbroadband speeds. It is difficult to define a “universal” broadbandspeed target. History clearly demonstrates that technology typicallymoves faster than most people anticipate – so countries and operatorsneed to start planning now for the imminent broadband world.Source: Teresa Mastrangelo, Voice of Broadband newsletter, November 2013; and Ciena at:www.gigaom.com/2014/02/15/the-need-for-speed-why-broadband-network-upgradesare-critical-to-economic-growth/23