The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) officially approved the very-high-bit-rate digital subscriber line 2 (VDSL2) standard. The new VDSL2 Recommendation (ITU-T G.993.2) delivers up to 100 Mbps both up and downstream, a ten-fold increase over "plain vanilla" ADSL. Yoichi Maeda, chairman of the ITU Telecommunications Standardization Sector (ITU-T) Study Group responsible for the work, said: "We have leveraged the strengths of ADSL, ADSL2+, and VDSL to achieve the very high performance levels you will see with VDSL2. This new standard is set to become an extremely important feature of the telecommunications landscape, and is a landmark achievement for our members, many of whom are relying on this Recommendation to take their businesses to the next level."
The global streaming industry has spent the better part of a decade chasing subscriber counts as the primary metric of success. That era is now formally over. New market data from Omdia confirms that the industry has crossed a decisive threshold; one that shifts the competitive playing field from growth-at-all-costs to monetization discipline. For senior executives navigating media, advertising, and technology strategy, the implications extend well beyond entertainment. A Historic Revenue Crossover Online video revenue increased 13.5 percent to $176 billion in 2025, while pay-TV revenue declined 4 percent to $170 billion; marking the first time in the industry's history that streaming has surpassed legacy pay-TV in revenue terms. This is not a rounding error or a statistical artifact; it represents the culmination of more than a decade of structural disruption to the traditional broadcast and cable TV model. Global subscriptions to online video services reached 2.24 billion by the ...