Imagine a world without books, photographs, movies, televisions, stereo systems, letters, postcards, billboards, telephones and fax machines; that place is not the Dark Ages, but is the world that most people in the twenty-first century will experience everyday as they live, work, shop and play. These traditional forms of media and communication will be replaced by a single universal digital medium that will evolve from the current state of the Internet. The process by which all of these separate media channels merge, transform and come to be delivered via a global network is known as a digital convergence.
More than ever before, entertainment, media, information and technology are converging in an unprecedented fashion. Both Cable and DSL broadband networks and satellite receivers deliver video, audio and data to millions of households on-demand every day. Emerging technologies will soon empower consumers to have the ability to subscribe to a vast selection of digital libraries, consisting of movies, videos and music from the comfort of their own living rooms, home offices and bedrooms; giving the ability to stream media to and from any location in their home in a seamless web of connectivity.
In preparation for that day, industries are bracing themselves to compete on all fronts for market dominance of as many elements of the urban digital home as possible. According to recent US Census data, household broadband access has reached just over 277,436,130 internet users as of Mar/14, 87.0% of the population, according to PEW. The emergence of the urban digital home brings with it, the potential for billions of dollars in new product and service revenue streams.