With sufficient bandwidth, streaming video services of prerecorded content wouldn't be necessary, explained Cerf, who is now a technology evangelist at Google. With sufficient throughput, the entire file of a movie or television show could be downloaded in a fraction of the time that it would take to stream the content.

Cerf, speaking at Juniper Network's Nextwork conference, held Wednesday in New York, spoke about the company's decision to outfit Kansas City with fiber-optic connections that the company than broadband services commercially available.

The purpose of the project was "to demonstrate what happens when you have gigabit speeds available," Cerf said. "Some pretty dramatic applications are possible."

Interviewed by veteran computer reporter Steven Levy, Cerf explained what could be done with all this bandwidth. One obvious application is greater access to high-definition video, he explained.

"When you are watching video today, streaming is a very common practice. At gigabit speeds, a video file [can be transferred] faster than you can watch it," he said. "So rather than [receiving] the bits out in a synchronous way, instead you could download the hour's worth of video in 15 seconds and watch it at your leisure."