Billing ‘better broadband’

Demand for innovative services and the corresponding spike in broadband traffic and consumption are changing the way operators define the value of what they sell. We talked to policy control specialist Sandvine’s co-founder, Tom Donnelly, on the shifting economic models at play.

What exactly is this idea of “better broadband?”

Tom Donnelly: We're at an interesting point in our industry, where there is clearly a growing demand for a wider and wider range of services, to the point where we don’t know what the next big thing will be. It wasn’t that long ago that I hadn’t heard of peer-to-peer or social networking or the idea of HD streaming media via something called YouTube. Each of these innovations brings increasingly strong demand for a broadband infrastructure that supports what consumers want with an appropriate quality of experience...