dustry to develop and distribute the means to transmit information to users worldwide. By 2008, over 15 percent of households worldwide will have some type of high-speed broadband connection, predicts ABI, a technology research firm located in Oyster Bay, New York. The highest share of households will be in North America, followed by Western Europe, Asia-Pacific, and the rest of the world. ABI also finds that while cable broadband is leading in the United States, the worldwide DSL market share as of 2002 is around 60 percent, whereas cable broadband holds about 40 percent of the market. But the desire to acquire more subscribers, while retaining existing ones, will spearhead the bundling and inter-reliance of "boxes" with any one or more of the triple play services in more creative ways over the next few years, leading to attractive price points and inventive services. In the past, cable MSOs and consumer electronics vendors have had a dis- connect in the way that they have offered services and products to consumers. "There always existed the 'chicken or the egg' arguments as to whether con- sumers should buy the products first based on the product's standalone fea- tures, or should the products be developed first and be made available for subscription to one or more of the triple play services," says Vamsi Sistla, ABI's director of broadband research. "Now, the unlikely bedfellows are seeing one another as necessary for survival." Although worldwide digital cable households made up less than 9 percent of cable households in 2002, this share will grow continuously to reach just over 20 percent by 2008, forecasts ABI. However, this figure will represent only 7 percent of all the worldwide households as of 2008. The digital broad- cast satellite (DBS) share of worldwide households will be over 12 percent in the year 2008. Video-over-DSL will be the new kid on the block, with U.S. incumbent local exchange carriers (ILECs) and competitive local exchange carriers (CLECs) charging ahead with aggressive deployments to f