The Economist weighs in on the emergence of faster wireless networks
“All of that, and more, is going to be needed when consumers start to “cut the television cable” in earnest. The cable TV companies are experiencing their biggest decline in revenue in 30 years as tech-savvy viewers start to ditch the bundles of television channels they have had to sign up for (the bulk of which they rarely watch but still have to pay for) in favour of buying, or getting for free, from YouTube, Hulu, Netflix, iTunes and other websites just the shows and films they actually want to watch.
In principle, there was nothing wrong with the “TV Everywhere” concept championed a while ago by Comcast and Time Warner, the two largest cable TV companies in America. The cable firms thought it would be just dandy if people could watch their digital entertainment, delivered by broadband, on any device they wished, wherever they wanted—provided, of course, they kept their cable service at home. The only mistake they made was to expect customers to do the latter.
In ditching their cable contracts, consumers have started streaming shows and movies from the web not just to their television sets in the living room, but also to their smartphones and wireless-connected laptops, iPads and other mobile gadgets. As they do so, the demand for mobile bandwidth is growing faster than anyone ever imagined. Streaming a single video from the web to a mobile device takes as much bandwidth as 100 phone calls. Even with a 4G service like LTE, it will be touch and go whether the wireless carriers will be able to keep up.”