Interactive broadband services — including video, data, and the Internet — are currently emerging and in some cases, they are growing rapidly. In addition, wireless services, also experiencing rapid growth, are expanding even further with the introduction of personal communications services (PCS). Both wireline and wireless segments of telecommunications services are having a significant effect on public networks. This paper discusses the end-to-end network architecture needed to provide these services, as well as the design criteria associated with each one. Further, it details some residential broadband access realization alternatives now being considered.