Broadband will transform the Internet for both individual and business users, says Corning Optical Communications president Wendell Weeks. The Future of Fiber, a Mckinsely Quarterly article (free but registration is required) is a question-and-answer interview with Weeks. "We’re visual people, and we need the visual richness that can only come through broadband."

For business users, he sees peer-to-peer applications which provide the "ability to collaborate in some way other than through the hierarchy of today’s networks" as the killer app enabled by broadband. "Why don’t we use more videoconferencing? Because the quality of the connection is so poor. We value connection to the point where you’ll get on a plane and use a day for a two-hour meeting that you could have done in a videoconference but didn’t because videoconferencing isn’t good enough."

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