There is a technology that both the cable MSO's and the telephone companies are pursuing - it is called switched broadcast. Why? Because switched broadcasting allows the provider to send only the video stream that you are watching instead of the hundreds of channels that are possible. Obviously, this is much more bandwidth friendly.

AT&T's IPTV solution called Uverse uses this approach. It is the primary reason that they don't feel that fiber optic cable needs to be run to every house (like Verizon's FiOS network).

Before we conclude that this is something that only helps the provider, think again. First, when you make switched broadcast work, all the remaining bandwidth is freed up to offer other digital services. Also, there really is no 'technical' limit to the number of channels that can be offered because the bandwidth for a lesser viewed network does not compete to fit on the wire.

Finally, when television efficiently uses its portion of bandwidth, then more bandwidth is available for the rest of the triple play. But voice services don't require much, so that translates to faster Internet service!