Cable television is a system of providing television Television is a widely used telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images, either monochromatic ("black and white") or color, usually accompanied by sound. "Television" may also refer specifically to a television set, television programming or television transmission. The word is derived from mixed Latin to consumers via radio frequency Radio frequency is a rate of oscillation in the range of about 30 kHz to 300 GHz, which corresponds to the frequency of electrical signals normally used to produce and detect radio waves. RF usually refers to electrical rather than mechanical oscillations, although mechanical RF systems do exist (see mechanical filter and RF MEMS) signals transmitted to televisions through fixed optical fibers An optical fiber is made up of the core , the cladding (reflecting the light pulses back into the core) and the buffer coating (protecting the core and cladding from moisture, damage, etc). Together, all of this creates a fiber optic which can carry up to 10 million messages at any time using light pulses. Fiber optics is the overlap of applied or coaxial cables Coaxial cable, or coax, is an electrical cable with an inner conductor surrounded by a flexible, tubular insulating layer, surrounded by a tubular conducting shield. The term coaxial comes from the inner conductor and the outer shield sharing the same geometric axis. Coaxial cable was invented by English engineer and mathematician Oliver Heaviside, as opposed to the over-the-air method used in traditional television broadcasting Terrestrial television is a mode of television broadcasting which does not involve satellite transmission or underground cables — typically using radio waves through transmitting and receiving antennas or aerials. The term is more common in Europe, while in the United States it is referred to as broadcast television (via radio waves) in which a television antenna is required. FM radio FM broadcasting is a broadcast technology pioneered by Edwin Howard Armstrong that uses frequency modulation to provide high-fidelity sound over broadcast radio programming, high-speed Internet Broadband Internet access, often shortened to just broadband, is a high data rate Internet access—typically contrasted with dial-up access using a 56k modem, telephony In telecommunication, telephony encompasses the general use of equipment to provide voice communication over distances, specifically by connecting telephones to each other, and similar non-television services may also be provided.

The abbreviation CATV is often used to mean "Cable TV". It originally stood for Community Antenna Television, from cable television's origins in 1948: in areas where over-the-air reception was limited by distance from transmitters or mountainous terrain, large "community antennas" were constructed, and cable was run from them to individual homes.

It is most commonplace in North America North America is the northern continent of the Americas, situated in the Earth's northern hemisphere and in the western hemisphere. It is bordered on the north by the Arctic Ocean, on the east by the North Atlantic Ocean, on the southeast by the Caribbean Sea, and on the west by the North Pacific Ocean; South America lies to the southeast, Europe Europe is one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally divided from Asia to its east by the water divide of the Ural Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian Sea, the Caucasus region (Specification of borders) and the Black Sea to the southeast. Europe is bordered by the Arctic Ocean and, Australia For at least 40,000 years before European settlement in the late 18th century, Australia was inhabited by indigenous Australians, who belonged to one or more of the roughly 250 language groups. After sporadic visits by fishermen from the immediate north and discovery by Dutch explorers in 1606, Australia's eastern half was claimed by the British and East Asia East Asia or Eastern Asia is a subregion of Asia that can be defined in either geographical or cultural terms. Geographically and geo-politically, it covers about 12,000,000 km2 (4,600,000 sq mi), or about 28 percent of the Asian continent, about 15 percent bigger than the area of Europe, though it is present in many other countries, mainly in South America South America is the southern continent of America, situated in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere. It is bordered on the west by the Pacific Ocean and on the north and east by the Atlantic Ocean; North America and the Caribbean Sea lie to the northwest and the Middle East The Middle East is a region that encompasses southwestern Asia and Egypt. In some contexts, the term has recently been expanded in usage to sometimes include Afghanistan and Pakistan, the Caucasus and Central Asia, and North Africa. It's often used as a synonym for Near East, in opposition to Far East. The corresponding adjective is Middle-Eastern. Cable TV has had little success in Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second most-populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area. With a billion people (as of 2009, see table) in 61 territories, it accounts for about 14.72% of the world's human population, as it is not cost-effective to lay cables in sparsely populated areas. So-called "wireless cable" or microwave Business Radio Service formerly known as Multichannel Multipoint Distribution Service (MMDS), also known as Wireless Cable, is a wireless telecommunications technology, used for general-purpose broadband networking or, more commonly, as an alternative method of cable television programming reception. MMDS is used in The United States, Canada,-based systems are used instead.

Cable television deployments

Asia & Australia

Australia

Cable television began in the early 1990s in Australia. Several companies appeared including FOXTEL, Galaxy TV, OPTUS TV, Selectv and Austar offering services to homes across 6 major states of Australia including; Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, Western Australia and The Australian Capital Territory. Services to states such as Tasmania and the Northern territory took far longer to even be considered capable of receiving cable television, even up until the mid 2000's when the digital satellite pay television service had picked up momentum and was beginning to be used for metropolitan installs and not just rural installs.

Philippines

The first cable service in the Philippines is the SkyCable SkyCable is a direct-to-home cable TV and subscription service in the Philippines. SkyCable is the largest cable TV company in Philippines, established by the Lopez Group of Companies and Central CATV Group Of Companies. It is one of several sister companies of ABS-CBN. It started in 1992. Cable providers grown, and these some examples are Global Destiny & Cablelink Cablelink is a subscription-based cable television and broadband cable internet service provider owned by the Cable Link & Holdings Corporation. It currently operates in the southern part of Metro Manila, specifically at the areas of Manila, Pasig City, Las Piñas City, Muntinlupa City, Parañaque City, Pasay City, Pateros, Taguig City, Bacoor,, and some regional cable providers. In 2009, SkyCable introduced the DigiBox, which provides more high quality picuture and to prevent illegal connections. SkyCable also broadcasted HD High-definition video or HD video refers to any video system of higher resolution than standard-definition video, and most commonly involves display resolutions of 1280×720 pixels (720p) or 1920×1080 pixels (1080i/1080p). This article discusses the general concepts of high-definition video, as opposed to its specific applications in television in the 37th Ryder Cup in 2008.

Mongolia

There are several cable TV providers in Mongolia. The main three are "SuperVision", "Hiimori" and "Sansar CATV". All three cover approximately 10 national channels and 40 foreign channels, such as CNN, BBC, and NHK. Among them "SuperVision" is known for its superior quality and gives much more interesting channels, such as National Geographic and Discovery. "Sansar" and "Hiimori" and other smaller companies fill their channel list with Chinese and Indian channels.^{[citation needed]}

Maldives

There is only 2 cable TV operators in the country.^{[citation needed]} As the population of the Maldives is separated across around 200 inhabited islands, there is a cable TV operator for nearly every island. Media Net Pvt. Ltd. is the country's largest cable TV operator(providing only analog service digital service has been announced. Media Net is a Male-based cable TV operator that provides cable and MMDS service to five islands near Male. Media Net holds the license of distribution for 75 channels and distributes channels to nearly all the operators of the country. In Maldives, cable TV subscribers can get most premium channels in available in Asia.

Latin America

Panamá

Panamanian company Rexa started Cable TV deployment in 1983. Rexa's successor, Cableonda, was dominant throughout the 1990s, but as the customer base expanded, other companies entered the market. Since 2000 several companies compete for the Panamanian market, such as CTV, Cable Onda, Cablevision, Cable and Wireless, and others. Cable Onda is the largest. The penetration of CableTV in Panamá is at 40%.^{[citation needed]}

Dominican Republic

Cable television in the Dominican Republic is provided by a variety of companies. These companies offer both English and Spanish language television, plus a range of channels in other languages, high definition High-definition television refers to video having resolution substantially higher than traditional television systems (standard-definition TV, or SDTV, or SD). HD has one or two million pixels per frame, roughly five times that of SD. Early HDTV broadcasting used analog techniques, but today HDTV is digitally broadcast using video compression channels, Pay-per-view Pay-per-view provides a service by which a television audience can purchase events to view via private telecast of that event to (say) their homes. The broadcaster shows the event at the same time to everyone ordering it (as opposed to video-on-demand systems, which allow viewers to see recorded broadcasts at any time). Events can be purchased movies and events, sports packages and premium movie channels such as HBO, Playboy TV, Cinecanal Cinecanal is a Latin American panregional cable television network launched in April 1993. It is owned by a group of Hollywood studios and Latin American cable companies. The studio owners include Paramount, 20th Century Fox and NBC Universal. MGM was also a co-owner until its takeover by Sony, etc. Also, the channels are from not only the Dominican Republic, but also the United States and Europe. In the Dominican Republic television spectrum, there are 46 VHF VHF is the radio frequency range from 30 MHz to 300 MHz. Frequencies immediately below VHF are denoted High frequency (HF), and the next higher frequencies are known as Ultra high frequency (UHF). The frequency allocation is done by ITU, UHF Ultra high frequency designates a range of electromagnetic waves with frequencies between 300 MHz and 3 GHz (3,000 MHz), also known as the decimetre band or decimetre wave as the wavelengths range from one to ten decimetres (10 cm to 1 metre). Radio waves with frequencies above the UHF band fall into the SHF (super high frequency) and EHF (, and free-to-air Free-to-view is, generally, available without subscription but is digitally encoded and may be restricted geographically. Neither of these is pay-TV, which is an encrypted subscription (or pay-per-view) service channels. The free of charge channels programming consists mainly of locally produced entertainment shows, news, and comedy shows; and foreign sit-coms, soap operas, movies, cartoons, and sports programs.

The main service provider in the Dominican Republic is Telecable from Tricom. Aster is concentrated in Santo Domingo, but is expanding its service throughout the Dominican Republic. There are also new companies using new technologies that are expanding quickly such as Claro TV (IPTV Internet Protocol television is a system through which internet television services are delivered using the architecture and networking methods of the Internet Protocol Suite over a packet-switched network infrastructure, e.g., the Internet and broadband Internet access networks, instead of being delivered through traditional radio frequency), Wind Telecom(MMDS Business Radio Service formerly known as Multichannel Multipoint Distribution Service (MMDS), also known as Wireless Cable, is a wireless telecommunications technology, used for general-purpose broadband networking or, more commonly, as an alternative method of cable television programming reception. MMDS is used in The United States, Canada,) and SKY SKY Latin America is a company that operates a subscription television service in the Mexico, Central America, Dominican Republic and Brazil, and refers to two closely related Pay-TV providers, one headquartered Mexico and the other in Brazil. It produces TV content, and owns several TV channels. It is one of Mexico's leading pay-TV providers and(Satellite TV Satellite television is television delivered by the means of communications satellite and received by a satellite dish and set-top box. In many areas of the world it provides a wide range of channels and services, often to areas that are not serviced by terrestrial or cable providers).

Europe

Ireland

Cable television is the most common system for distributing multi-channel television in Ireland. With more than 40 year of history and extensive networks of both wired and "wireless" cable, Ireland is amongst the most cabled countries in Europe. Forty percent^[1] of Irish homes received cable television in September 2006. The figure dropped slightly in the early years of the 21st century due to the increased popularity of satellite reception, notably Sky Sky Digital is the brand name for British Sky Broadcasting's digital satellite television and radio service, transmitted from SES Astra satellites located at 28.2° east and Eutelsat's Eurobird 1 satellite at 28.5°E, but has stabilized recently.

Virgin Media Virgin Media Inc. is an American-domiciled British provider of television, telephone and broadband internet services to domestic and business customers in the UK, delivered primarily through its fibre-optic cable network, headquartered on paper in New York City with operations based in Hook, North Hampshire, UK. The company was formerly known as owns the cable television license for Northern Ireland, that region of The United Kingdom having had the same history as the rest of the country within the last few decades (see below). In the Republic of Ireland, UPC Ireland UPC Communications Ireland Limited, which trades primarily under the brand name Chorus NTL, is Liberty Global Europe's operation in Ireland. It is part of the UPC Broadband division of Liberty, UPC being an abbreviation of that company's previous name, United Philips Cable. It owns almost all of the cable operations in Ireland including those in, which trades under the brand name Chorus NTL, is by far the largest cable and MMDS operator, owning all of the state's MMDS licenses and almost all of the state's cable TV operators. UPC offers analogue and digital cable television services in cities and towns throughout the country (with the exception of Cork, where the network is digital-only). It offers MMDS services in rural areas. In areas previously served by NTL, the network is digital-only, while Chorus areas still have both analgoue and digital services. Other than UPC, the only other operator providing analogue and digital cable is Casey Cablevision, which operates in Dungarvan Dungarvan is a town and harbour on the south coast of Ireland in the province of Munster. Dungarvan is the administrative centre of County Waterford. The town's Irish name means "Garbhan's fort", referring to Saint Garbhan who founded a church there in the seventh century. The town lies on the N25 road (European route E30), which, County Waterford County Waterford is one of the traditional counties of Ireland and is located within the province of Munster. It was named after the city of Waterford (which derives from the Old Norse name Veðrafjǫrðr or Vedrarfjord). Dungarvan is the administrative centre of County Waterford. There also exists a small number of analogue-only cable networks such as the Longford Longford is the county seat of County Longford in Ireland. It has a population of 19,969 according to the 2006 census. Approximately one third of the county's population resides in the town. Longford town is also the biggest town in the county, Granard is second. Longford is also located at the axis of convergence of the N4 and the N5 primary service Crossan Cable.

United Kingdom

When the infant BBC Television BBC Television is a service of the British Broadcasting Corporation which began in 1932. The British Broadcasting Corporation has operated in the United Kingdom under the terms of a Royal Charter since 1927 service was started in 1932, Rediffusion Rediffusion was a business which distributed radio and TV signals through wired relay networks. The business gave rise to a number of other companies, including Associated-Rediffusion, later known as Rediffusion London, one of the first companies to win a terrestrial ITV franchise in the UK. Redifon was the name used until 1981 for companies in, which had supplied cable radio services since 1928, started providing "Pipe TV" to its customers who had difficulties tuning into the weak TV broadcast signal^[2].

Suspended during World War II, the BBC service was re-established in June 1946, and had only one transmitter, at Alexandra Palace Set in Alexandra Park, Alexandra Palace was built in an area between Hornsey, Muswell Hill and Wood Green in North London, England, in 1873 as a public centre of recreation, education and entertainment and as North London's counterpart to the Crystal Palace in South London, which served the London area. From the end of 1949, new transmitters were steadily opened to serve other major conurbations, and then smaller areas of population. The areas on the fringes of the transmitter coverage provided an opportunity for Rediffusion Rediffusion was a business which distributed radio and TV signals through wired relay networks. The business gave rise to a number of other companies, including Associated-Rediffusion, later known as Rediffusion London, one of the first companies to win a terrestrial ITV franchise in the UK. Redifon was the name used until 1981 for companies in and other commercial companies to expand cable systems to enlarge the viewing audience for the one BBC The British Broadcasting Corporation is the largest broadcasting organisation in the world. Its global headquarters are located in London and its main responsibility is to provide public service broadcasting in the United Kingdom, Channel Islands and Isle of Man. The BBC is an autonomous public service broadcaster that operates under a Royal television channel which then existed. The first was in Gloucester in 1950^[3] and the process gathered pace over the next few years, especially after a second television channel, ITV ITV is a public service network of British commercial television broadcasters, set up under the Independent Television Authority to provide competition to the BBC. ITV is the oldest commercial television network in the UK, having begun broadcasting in 1955. Since 1990 and the Broadcasting Act 1990, its legal name has been Channel 3, the number 3, was launched in 1955 to compete with BBC. By the late 1970s, two and a half million British homes received their television service via cable.^[4]

By law, these cable systems were restricted to the relay of the public broadcast channels, which meant that as the transmitter network became more comprehensive, the incentive to subscribe to cable was reduced and they began to lose customers. In 1982, a radical liberalization of the law on cable was proposed by the Information Technology Advisory Panel^[5] , for the sake of promoting a new generation of broadband cable systems leading to the wired society^[6] After setting up and receiving the conclusions of the Hunt Inquiry into Cable Expansion and Broadcasting Policy, the Government decided to proceed with liberalization and two pieces of legislation: the Cable and Broadcasting Act and the Telecommunications Act, were enacted in 1984.

The result was that cable systems were permitted to carry as many new television channels as they liked, as well as providing a telephone service and interactive services of many kinds (as since made familiar by the Internet). To maintain the momentum of the perceived commercial interest in this new investment opportunity, in 1983, the Government itself granted eleven interim franchises for new broadband systems each covering a community of up to around 100,000 homes, but the competitive franchising process was otherwise left to the new regulatory body, the Cable Authority, which took on its powers from January 1, 1985.

The franchising process proceeded steadily, but the actual construction of new systems was slow, as doubts about an adequate payback from the substantial investment persisted. By the end of 1990 almost 15 million homes had been included in franchised areas, but only 828,000 of these had been passed by broadband cable and only 149,000 were actually subscribing.{^[7]} Thereafter, however, construction accelerated and take-up steadily improved.

The first new television channels launched for carriage on cable systems (going live in March 1984) were Sky Channel Sky1 is a British Sky Broadcasting entertainment channel in the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland. The channel first launched on 26 April 1982 as Satellite Television, and is the fourth-oldest TV channel in the UK, behind BBC One , ITV (22 September 1955) and BBC Two (20 April 1964). (S4C and Channel 4 began later on in 1982.), Screensport Screensport was a pan-European sports television channel. The network was launched as a stand-alone channel in Manchester in 1984 and later acquired by the WH Smith Television Group in 1987. In its later years, Screensport was renamed The European Sports Network, while WH Smith Television group later renamed itself WHSTV, Music Box and TEN - the Movie Channel. Others followed, some were merged or closed down, but the range expanded. A similar flux was seen among the operators of cable systems: franchises were granted to a host of different companies, but a process of consolidation saw the growth of large multiple system operators, until by the early 2000s, virtually the whole industry was in the hands of two companies, NTL Virgin Media Inc. is a British provider of television, telephone and broadband internet services to domestic and business customers in the UK, delivered primarily through its fibre-optic cable network, headquartered on paper in New York City with operations based in Hook, North Hampshire, UK. The company was formerly known as ntl:Telewest and Telewest Telewest, formerly Telewest Broadband and Telewest Communications was a cable Internet, broadband internet, telephone supplier and cable television provider in the United Kingdom. It was listed on the London Stock Exchange and was once a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index but on 3 March 2006 it merged with NTL to become NTL:Telewest; then on 8.

In 2005, it was announced that NTL and Telewest would merge, after a period of co-operation in the preceding few years. This merger was completed on March 3, 2006, with the company being named ntl Incorporated. For the time being, the two brand names and services were marketed separately. However, following NTL's acquisition of Virgin Mobile, the NTL and Telewest services were rebranded Virgin Media Virgin Media Inc. is an American-domiciled British provider of television, telephone and broadband internet services to domestic and business customers in the UK, delivered primarily through its fibre-optic cable network, headquartered on paper in New York City with operations based in Hook, North Hampshire, UK. The company was formerly known as on February 8, 2007, creating a single cable operator covering more than 95% of the UK cable market.^{[citation needed]} Note that this history of Telewest and NTL becoming Virgin Media also covers the cable television history of Northern Ireland within the most recent decades, it being one of the four regions of The U.K., though included in the Ireland section, above, in this article.

There are a small number of other surviving cable television companies in the UK outside of NTL including WightCable Wight Cable 2005 Ltd is the only provider of commercial and residential cable television services on the Isle of Wight. They also provide telephone and broadband internet services. Along with Kingston Communications and others, it is one of the last few remaining cable companies in the UK not owned by Virgin Media who, from March 2006, operate (Isle of Wight The Isle of Wight is a county and the largest island of England, located in the English Channel, 3–5 miles off the south coast of the county of Hampshire, separated from the mainland by a strait called the Solent. The island is known for its outstanding natural beauty, its world-famous sailing based at the town of Cowes, and its resorts, which) and Smallworld Smallworld Cable is a provider of digital cable television in the UK based in Irvine. The coverage area is Irvine, Dreghorn, Troon and Kilmarnock in the west of Scotland, and Carlisle, Lancaster and Morecambe in the north-west of England, serving over 40,000 homes (Ayrshire Ayrshire is a registration county, and former administrative county in south-west Scotland, located on the shores of the Firth of Clyde. Its principal towns include Ayr, Kilmarnock and Irvine. The town of Troon on the coast has hosted the British Open Golf Championship twice in the last seven years and eight times in total. Approximately 200,000, Carlisle and Lancashire).

Cable TV faces intense competition from British Sky Broadcasting's Sky Digital satellite television service. Most channels are carried on both platforms. However, cable often lacks "interactive" features (e.g. text services, and extra video-screens), especially on BSkyB owned channels, and the satellite platform lacks services requiring high degrees of two-way communication, such as true video on demand.

However, subscription-funded digital terrestrial television proved less of a competitive threat. The first system, ITV Digital, went into liquidation in 2002. Top Up TV later replaced it; however, this service is shrinking^{[citation needed]} as the DVB-T multiplex owners are finding free-to-air broadcasting more profitable.^{[citation needed]}

Another potential source of competition in the future will be TV over broadband internet connections; this is known as IPTV. Some IPTV services are currently available in London, while services operated in Hull ceased in April 2006.^{[citation needed]} As the speed and availability of broadband connections increase, more TV content can be delivered using protocols such as IPTV. However, its impact on the market is yet to be measured, as is consumer attitude toward watching TV programs on computers instead of television sets. At the end of 2006, BT (the UK's former state owned monopoly phone company) started offering BT Vision, which combines the digital free-to-air standard Freeview through an aerial, and on-demand IPTV, delivered over a BT Broadband connection through the Vision set-top box (BT have chosen to deploy Microsoft's Mediaroom platform for this.)^{[citation needed]}

North America

Canada

Cable television in Canada began in 1952 with community antenna connections in Vancouver and London; which city is first is not clear. Initially, the systems brought American stations to viewers in Canada who had no Canadian stations to watch; broadcast television, though begun late in 1952 in Toronto and Montreal, did not reach a majority of cities until 1954.

In time, cable television was widely established to carry available Canadian stations as well as import American stations, which constituted the vast majority of signals on systems (usually only one or two Canadian stations, while some systems had duplicate or even triplicate coverage of American networks). During the 1970s, a growing number of Canadian stations pushed American channels off the systems, forcing several to expand beyond the original 12-channel system configurations. At the same time, the advent of fibre-optic technology enabled companies to extend their systems to nearby towns and villages that by themselves were not viable cable television markets.

Mexico

USA

Customer Surveys

A recent third party survey of citizens found approximately 62% of the respondents were very dissatisfied (along with another 25% who were dissatisfied) with the cost of cable television service. A majority of the respondents were satisfied with the friendliness and courtesy of customer service personnel, however, approximately 30% of the respondents rated the cable company's performance as poor. With regard to open-ended comments, respondents felt that the cost of the cable service was too high, a need for cable competition existed and the desire for a basic cable package offering was desired. Although respondents cited these critical issues, the local monopoly structure could be considered to preserve the status quo of poor customer service, limited product choices, no direct competition, and uncontrollable annual cable TV price increases.

Fee Structure

The industry strongly lobbies against federal "family tier" and "a la carte cable television" bills which would provide consumers the option of purchasing individual channels rather than a broad tier of programming, sometimes consisting of channels which are not desired by various subscriber segments. These anti-consumer issues continue to garner attention from state governments, Congress and FCC Chairman Martin.^[8] What's more, the argument calling for an adjustment to the manner in which cable is distributed was reaffirmed in January 2010 when cable subscribers throughout Connecticut, New Jersey, and New York found themselves in the middle of a contentious battle over an increase in subscriber fees paid to the media company Scripps Networks Interactive by cable provider Cablevision. The parties' contract expired December 31, 2009, and as they were unable to reach a mutual agreement beforehand regarding the amount paid for each cable subscriber, Scripps pulled two of its television channels, HGTV and Food Network, from the Cablevision channel lineup on January 1, 2010 at 12:01AM.^{[9][10][11][12]}

Other cable-based services

Coaxial cables are capable of bi-directional carriage of signals as well as the transmission of large amounts of data. Cable television signals use only a portion of the bandwidth available over coaxial lines. This leaves plenty of space available for other digital services such as cable internet, cable telephony and wireless services, using both unlicensed and licensed spectrum.

Broadband internet is achieved over coaxial cable by using cable modems to convert the network data into a type of digital signal that can be transferred over coaxial cable. One problem with some cable systems is the older amplifiers placed along the cable routes are unidirectional thus in order to allow for uploading of data the customer would need to use an analog telephone modem to provide for the upstream connection. This limited the upstream speed to 31.2k and prevented the always-on convenience broadband internet typically provides. Many large cable systems have upgraded or are upgrading their equipment to allow for bi-directional signals, thus allowing for greater upload speed and always-on convenience, though these upgrades are expensive.

In North America, Australia and Europe many cable operators have already introduced cable telephone service, which operates just like existing fixed line operators. This service involves installing a special telephone interface at the customer's premises that converts the analog signals from the customer's in-home wiring into a digital signal, which is then sent on the local loop (replacing the analog last mile, or POTS) to the company's switching center, where it is connected to the PSTN. The biggest obstacle to cable telephone service is the need for nearly 100% reliable service for emergency calls. One of the standards available for digital cable telephony, PacketCable, seems to be the most promising and able to work with the Quality of Service demands of traditional analog POTS service. The biggest advantage to digital cable telephone service is similar to the advantage of digital cable TV, namely that data can be compressed, resulting in much less bandwidth used than a dedicated analog circuit-switched service. Other advantages include better voice quality and integration to a VoIP network providing cheap or unlimited nationwide and international calling. Note that in many cases, digital cable telephone service is separate from cable modem service being offered by many cable companies and does not rely on IP traffic or the Internet.

Beginning in 2004 in the United States, the traditional cable television providers and traditional telecommunication companies increasingly compete in providing voice, video and data services to residences. The combination of TV, telephone and Internet access is commonly called triple play regardless of whether CATV or telcos offer it.

More recently, several US cable operators have begun offering wireless services to their subscribers. Most notably was the September 2008 launch of Optimum Wi-Fi by Cablevision. This service is made available, at no additional cost, to Optimum Broadband subscribers, and is available at over 14,000 locations across Long Island, NY, parts of NJ and CT. Cablevision has reported a double digit reduction in subscriber churn since launching Optimum Wi-Fi, even as Verizon has rolled out FiOS, a competitive residential broadband service in the Cablevision footprint. Other Tier 1 cable operators, including Comcast, have announced trials of a similar service in sections of the US Northeast.

Consumer issues

Using a cable service naturally requires that access to a cable network be installed at the customer location. Laying and maintaining this cable has costs. From the consumer's viewpoint, having a choice of who provides this service may be deemed desirable, however from a business viewpoint it may be undesirable as this would require multiple companies investing in laying many generally identical cables to the same location. Altogether that could mean greater costs, since there is more physical cable in existence. Therefore the idea of a natural monopoly may apply, whereby in most places only one cable provider is preferable (seemingly for all concerned). Competition in one place may therefore come in the form of terrestrial or satellite providers. As with all situations where competition is in some way limited, there is a potential for consumers to feel they are unfairly treated by the market. Market regulators may therefore tend to limit such consumer concerns by broadening the consumers choice from a single provider, for instance in expecting them to offer variously priced channel selections, improving service other times (for instance, by making use of technological progress) and measures such as providing free-for-all (public) TV.

See also

• Digital cable
• DVB-C
• North American cable television frequencies
• Broadband
• Digital television
• QAM Tuner
• CableCARD
• Tru2way
• Private Cable Operator
• Satellite television

References

1. ^ Commission for Communications Regulation
2. ^ A short history of Rediffusion by Russ J Graham
3. ^ 2008 Aldrich MJ History of UK Cable, Aldrich Archive, University of Brighton,[[1]]
4. ^ 1982 Aldrich MJ co-author Cable Systems p18 HMSO London ISBN 0116308214
5. ^ 2008 Aldrich MJ The Cable Story Aldrich Archive, University of Brighton [[2]]
6. ^ 1982 Aldrich MJ co-author Cable Systems HMSO London ISBN 0116308214
7. ^ Cable Authority, Final Report and Accounts 1990
8. ^ http://projects.publicintegrity.org/telecom/search/profile.aspx?id=M000018
9. ^ http://insidetv.aol.com/2010/01/04/why-you-cant-watch-food-network-and-hgtv-on-cablevision/?icid=main|main|dl2|link1|http%3A%2F%2Finsidetv.aol.com%2F2010%2F01%2F04%2Fwhy-you-cant-watch-food-network-and-hgtv-on-cablevision%2F
10. ^ http://www.newstribune.com/articles/2010/01/06/entertainment/nt361ent10cablevisionscripps10.txt
11. ^ http://www.multichannel.com/article/442389-Analyst_Scripps_Fight_Shouldn_t_Hurt_Cablevision.php
12. ^ http://wcbstv.com/local/food.network.hgtv.2.1404617.html

External links

• All European Cable TV Operators
• ThisIsCable.com

Categories: Cable television

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