Verizon has announced that it intends to offer faster DSL plans to consumers. While the cable and telecom companies have been fighting the DSL & Cable Modem wars for a couple years, I get the sense that the market is headed toward commodity status.
I don't believe that an average consumer can understand the difference between a 1.5 mbps download speed and 3 mbps, but they certainly understand the difference between $29.95/month (roughly the price for DSL these days) vs. $45/month (roughly the price for a cable modem). With price as the basis of competition today firms offering DSL services at cheaper prices are gaining subscribers faster than their cable modem offering cousins.
The inability to understand download speeds is probably tied to the lack of applications that really take advantage of broadband capabilities. When consumers start using services like Cinema Now or MovieLink, it will be easier to market cable over DSL or vice versa. Imagine an ad explaining that the movies you download would take only 30 minutes rather than 60 minutes, now consumers can understand that. Until there is a killer application for broadband, expect price to drive adoption of DSL and cable modems services.
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