I believe that these articles show that the Telco is going to push the speed feature while cherry picking the wealthiest neighborhoods. There was a time when WISPs were doing the same thing as opposed to now looking at picking up the crumbs where the Telco or the Cable Companies haven't found their way to yet.

The bar has been set to the next service level of 25Mbps to 30Mbps by the VDSL or the Verizon Fios deployments with the cable companies also looking to hit these speeds by utilizing DOCSIS 2.0 - something that many cable networks are capable of doing today.

The question is do we want to compete with them or are we in a mode of slowly retreating away from wherever these giants are deploying?

 As quoted from the article:

"Austin, TX (May 12, 2005) – As the demand for streaming video and video-on-demand services over broadband connections remain strong, IMS Research predicts that Very High Speed DSL, or VDSL, connections will continue to grow, especially in areas where operators are planning extensive Fiber-to-the-Neighborhood (FTTN) roll-out. IMS Research predicts global VDSL usage will increase substantially in 2005, reaching nearly seven million broadband subscribers by the end of the year, a 90% year-on-year increase from 2004.

According to broadband analyst Melissa Yocom, 'The growing demand for video, voice, and data services via broadband is providing a key opportunity for VDSL to penetrate broadband homes. There will be a substantial time lag before operators are able to deploy fiber-optics all the way to the premise, leaving VDSL as one of the best alternatives to enable high-bandwidth applications such as streaming video and voice solutions.'”

The article this quote was taken from can be found here:
http://www.imsresearch.com/members/pr.asp?X=189

As quoted from this article:

"Previously only known as "Project Lightspeed", SBC says they'll deliver U-Verse to some 18 million households by the end of 2007 - at a cost of between four to six billion dollars. Like Verizon's Fios, SBC will at first largely target dense affluent neighborhoods.

Unlike Fios, the service isn't fiber straight to the home. It's fiber to the node, then next generation DSL to your door. It's estimated Fios costs Verizon more than $1,200 per home install.

SBC's solution is less expensive ($200-$300 per home), though critics charge they're underestimating the bandwidth they'll need to provide HD content down the road. "

The article this quote was taken from can be found here:
http://www.broadbandreports.com/shownews/58747