Multimedia is of growing importance for the Web. Given the expectation that the Web will subsume current TV and cable services we can expect increasing amount of multimedia information. This implies important consequences for both the underlying network, and for the client and server. Initially, the Web offered downloaded (MPEG compressed) video, but this is not an appropriate approach except for short clips. Rather, one must use streaming servers where data is passed continuously from server to client. This implies important quality of service constraints on the network as one cannot afford delays. The current internet does not have the necessary bandwidths or reliable service except for audio (where the well-known Real Audio commercial product can deliver AM quality audio over modern phone lines). Of course, this audio and video delivery depends on compression technologies, such as fractal, MPEG, and Wavelet methods, whose details are closely guarded corporate secrets.
New networking hardware approaches, such as ISDN, ATM, and cable modems are very important for digital video as they offer high enough performance to support reasonable quality. However, the time scale and nature of their deployment is still unclear. One uncertainty is just how important to consumers, digital video is!