NTT America, a wholly owned U.S. subsidiary of NTT Communications Corporation (NTT (News - Alert) Com) and a Tier-1 global IP network services provider, on July 20 revealed what it feels are key trends and upcoming developments in the broadband and IP transit industry that will have significant impact for the remainder of 2011.

 Michael Wheeler, vice president of NTT America’s (News - Alert) Global IP Network business unit, stated that, “New technology innovations, global developments and the changing nature of how both businesses and consumers are using the Internet are all impacting our industry greatly…Now is the time for businesses to make the adjustments needed for success in the future.”

 Wheeler outlined developments in four key areas that will impact the industry and to which attention should be paid:

Industry consolidation:

Capital constraints will cause industry consolidation to continue. Consolidations cited were CenturyLink/Qwest (News - Alert)/Savvis, Terremark/Verizon and Level 3/Global Crossing.

 Emerging technology:

IPv6, while at the forefront of industry discussions, will have slow acceptance by carriers but ultimately will prevail because the exhaustion of IPv4 addresses in only a matter of time. While no IPv6 “killer app” will force a faster transition, NTT feels an aggregation of several apps driven by increased smarts and communications needs of devices and sensors (Digital Rights Management and RFID tags are to examples NTT thinks will be important) could accelerate adoption rates.

 Customer landscape:

Demands on the Internet will continue not just to grow but explode. NTT cites Forrester (News - Alert) Research as finding that 2010 marked the first year that consumers are spending just as much time online as they are in front of their televisions. It also cites a late-2010 study in Multichannel News that North American households are using a median of 4 Gigabytes per month of Internet bandwidth, rising steadily from 3 Gigabytes per month in 2009.

In what is an important revelation, Wheeler says NTT is finding that “overall, Internet usage is transitioning from cache and storage to real-time and over-the-top (OTT) content.”

 Global developments:

Latin America continues to rise in prominence as the next big emerging market. The press release from NTT says, “Netflix’s recent announcement that it will begin offering service in the region, many industry researchers are suggesting that streaming content from the company could overtake cable in terms of adoption.”

The IPv6 transition and changes in customer behavior as they move to more video-centric communications (on demand as well as real time) are the ones to really keep an eye on. This is not just for the rest of this year but over the next few. All signs —the rapid adoption of smartphones and tablets coupled with the extraordinary pressures social media with video calling capability, and the seemingly insatiable desire of people to post and exchange enriched content — are immutable trends.

 It should be added that so are the struggles by the industry to find business models that will pay for all of the network expansions the explosion in number of networking capable devices and bit hungry applications will require.  Public policy, specifically the debate over “net neutrality,” looms large and could have been added as a fifth major key development.

Peter Bernstein is a technology industry veteran, having worked in multiple capacities with several of the industry's biggest brands, including Avaya, Alcatel-Lucent, Telcordia, HP, Siemens, Nortel, France Telecom (News - Alert), and others, and having served on the Advisory Boards of 15 technology startups. To read more of Peter's work, please visit his columnist page.