Chapter 3. The Broadband Bazaar
A BROADBAND NETWORK has one purpose: to move massive amounts of information, swiftly and reliably, from one place to another, making the information available anywhere and at any time. The bigger the information, the better suited it is for broadband versus narrowband networks. Video, for example, is big, relative to audio or text messages, and performs much better over broadband.
Nonetheless, information can be an on-demand television show, a digital encyclopedia, a music file, a telephone call—anything that can be digitized and, if necessary to fit into the distribution medium, compressed—assuredly including services that have yet to be conceived.
After all, if humans could speak loudly enough to be heard from coast ...
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