According to ABI Research, cable operators are facing a "critical lack of capacity" and will need to spend $80 billion over the next five years to remedy the situation. Bandwidth-hogging services like HDTV and online gaming are responsible for the increase in demand for bandwidth services.

Cable operators will be working to address the situation in a variety of ways, including upgrading the spectrum beyond 750 MHz; rate shaping; node splitting; switched digital video, although some doubt that this will accomplish any meaningful gains; MPEG-4 compression; and home gateway management solutions among others.

In addition to looking for ways to increase spectrum and make the most of available bandwidth, operators are also turning to techniques like peering to reduce the overall load on their networks. Peering has been an established method of handling IP traffic among networks for years, however it takes on new meaning for certain IP-based services, like voice and video, which had been the exclusive domain of the carriers.

While carriers like AT&T and Verizon oppose so-called "net neutrality" measures, the concept works especially well for VoIP providers, who bypass the PSTN in favor of IP networks. VoIP is a growing part of the cable business, and cable providers who currently oppose a neutral 'net may find themselves the beneficiary of neutrality when it comes to expanding services like VoIP and video conferencing.