I've heard that in a few years (or perhaps more than a just a few) we
may be able to rent movies by download rather than going to the local
video rental. But with movies at roughly 7GB, that would be a long
download.

That is, unless broadband is getting faster every year. Even then it
seems a long way til 7G is managable.

But my question is, is broadband of today faster than broadband of 3
years ago, and will it be faster 3 years from now?

I have cable, and don't know much about DSL, but I guess my question
is 'on average'.  I imagine cable and dsl are close to the same speed,
and growing at close to the same speed (for competitive reasons if
nothing else).

Thank you,
Patrice