(Redirected from Cable TV)
Coaxial cable is often used to transmit 'cable television' into the house.
'Cable television' is a system of providing
television to consumers via radio frequency signals transmitted to televisions through fixed
optical fibers or
coaxial cables as opposed to the over-the-air method used in traditional television broadcasting (via radio waves) in which a television antenna is required.
FM radio programming,
high-speed Internet,
telephony 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 mountainous terrain, large "community antennas" were constructed, and cable was run from them to individual homes.
It is most commonplace in
North America,
Europe,
Australia and
East Asia, though it is present in many other countries, mainly in
South America and the
Middle East. Cable TV has had little success in
Africa, as it is not cost-effective to lay cables in sparsely populated areas, and although so-called "wireless cable" or
microwave-based systems are used, "direct-to-home"
satellite television is far more popular, especially in
South Africa.
Technology
Technically, CATV involves distributing a number of
television channels collected at a central location (called a
headend) to
subscribers within a community by means of a branched network of
optical fibers and/or
coaxial cables and
broadband amplifiers. Since the early 1990s, the most common architecture is the
Hybrid fibre-coaxial network.
As in the case of radio broadcasting, the use of different frequencies allows many channels to be distributed through the same cable, without separate wires for each. A
set-top box or the
tuner of the TV,
VCR or radio selects one channel from this mixed signal.
The same program is often simultaneously broadcast by radio waves and distributed by cable. Other programs may be distributed by cable only; rules restricting content (''e.g.'', regarding
nudity,
profanity, and
violence) are often more relaxed for cable than for over-the-air TV.
Traditional cable TV systems worked strictly by way of
analog signals (i.e. using standard radio waves) but many modern cable TV systems also employ the use of
digital cable technology, which uses compressed digital signals, allowing them to provide many more channels than they could with analog alone. Modern cable TV systems also offer other services such as
Video on demand, telephony, and high-speed data.
Cable television service has been regarded as a
natural monopoly by many, and most areas are still served by a single provider, though
Australia is characterized by extensive duplication. In the United States a monopoly on cable television has historically been enforced by local governments. In order to provide service to individual homes, a cable provider must place its cable wiring along and across local streets. To do so the provider must get permission from the local government(s) that own these streets. This permission comes in the form of a document called a franchise agreement. Most of local government(s) chose to grant permission to only one company. Changes in the law in the past few years have forced local governments to grant permission to other companies to provide service.
Cable television deployments
Americas
Argentina
Cable television had its origins in the 1960s, when a CATV service started to operate in
JunÃn.
Brazil
Cable television is distributed in
Brazil by various companies.
Canada
Mexico
The first cable system started to operate in the early 1960s in Monterrey, as a CATV service (an antenna at the top of the Loma Larga, which could get TV signals from South Texas). Most of the other major cities didn't develop cable systems until the late 1980s, due to government censorship. By 1989 the industry had had a major impulse with the founding of Multivisión—a MMDS system who started to develop its own channels in Spanish—and the later development of companies such as Cablemas and
Megacable.
Over the past few years, many US networks have started to develop content for the Latin American market, such as
CNN en Español,
MTV,
Cartoon Network,
Disney Channel,
Nickelodeon, and others. The country also has a DTH service called SKY (Televisa & News Corp. owned). Recently DirecTV merged with Sky. The dominant company nowadays is
Megacable and Grupo HEVI.
[1]
United States
The majority of American television viewers get their signal from CATV.
Main articles: Cable television in the United States
Asia
Hong Kong
Only one traditional cable provider operates in
Hong Kong,
i-Cable Communications Limited (branded as "''CableTV''"). Another three operators offers pay-TV via
DSL and
Ethernet, they are Now Broadband TV (
PCCW), HKBN Digital TV and
TVB PayVision.
Many in Hong Kong instead watch subscription TV using
satellite systems like
STAR TV.
Singapore
StarHub Cable Vision is the sole cable television operator in
Singapore, where private ownership of satellite dishes is banned. StarHub Cable Vision was formed as a result of a merger between
StarHub and
Singapore Cable Vision on
15 May 2002. The latter first began broadcasting as a terrestrial pay-television operator in 1992 as the first cable network was not completed until 1995. Around 15% of households and offices in Singapore are connected to the StarHub network.
Sri Lanka
Lanka Broadband Networks is the only pay television broadcaster using cable networks to serve 10,000 customers.
Thailand
Truevisions
[2] is only exclusive CATV in Thailand, formerly known as UBC (United Broadcasting Corporation). Truevision is a subsidiary of True
[3] provides CATV only in Bangkok area while DSTV (Digital Satellite TV) outside Bangkok.
Malaysia
Mega TV was launched in 1996 by
TV3 as the only cable television service. However, it fail to expand its content, and so, it closed down in
2001, replaced by its competitor, the satellite television network
Astro.
Europe
According to the European Audiovisual Observatory, there were 58 million cable households in the European Union as of 31 December 2004, i.e. a rate of penetration of 32 % of the television households. 5.7 millions were connected to digital networks.
Belgium
Belgium is the second most dense cabled country in the world after the Netherlands with over 99% of all households connected to cable television networks. Cable television was deployed nationwide in 1972 as a measure made by the government to eliminate the millions of antennas. Currently most cable companies are active on the triple-play market, offering television, telephone and internet services. Currently the analogue services are phased out to make way for digital television services and high definition television.
Romania
Romania has very high penetration rates for cable television in
Europe, with over 79% of all households watching television through a CATV network in 2007
[2]. The market is extremely dynamic, and dominated by two giant companies -
Romanian based
RCS&RDS and
US based
UPC-Astral. Both additionally offer IP telephony over coaxial cable and
Internet services. The national CATV network is being improved, and most households are being migrated towards digital cable solutions. Digital
DTH satellite service is available throughout the country, and accounts for an additional 10-15% of the market, with only about 5% being attributed to terrestrial analogue television. Digital satellite DTH is provided by a number of companies. It is possible that Romania will not migrate to digital terrestrial systems, but completely discontinue this service, since th said investments provide limited appeal.
The reasons for this appeal started in the early '90s. After
the fall of the communist regime, in 1989, there were only two state owned TV channels available (see
TVR), one only being available in about 20% of the country. Private TV channels were slow to appear, because of lack of experience and high start-up costs (most startups were
radio stations or
newspapers). Thus, for the first three years, over the air, one would get one or two state channels and one or two local, amateurish private channels, broadcasting only a few hours a day. In this environment, cable TV companies appeared and thrived, providing 15-20 foreign channels for a very low price (at the time 2
USD or less), some with Romanian translation, offering high quality news, entertainment and especially movies or cartoons (one of the ways cable companies advertised was the availability of a cartoon channel,
Cartoon Network, appealing to children, which in turn would appeal to their parents). The first two companies to provide CATV were Multicanal in
Bucharest and TimiÅŸ Cablu in
TimiÅŸoara, both out of business today. Many small, startup firms gradually grew, and coverage increased (coverage wars were frequent in the early period, with many cable boxes smashed, and new cable networks offering "half off for twice the channels" and immediately wiring the building for any willing persons). However, this period soon ended, with consolidation around 1995-1996. Some large companies emerged: Kappa and RCS in Bucharest, Astral in
Cluj, UPC in TimiÅŸoara, TourImex in
Râmnicu Vâlcea. This consolidation came with gentlemen agreements over areas of control and pricing, with claims of monopoly abounding. This process of consolidation was completed around 2005-2006, when only two big suppliers of cable remained: UPC-Astral and RDS. Internet over coaxial cable has been available since around 2000, and IP telephony (over the CATV infrastructure) since the deregulation of the market in 2003. Currently, cable TV is available in most of the country, including most rural areas (where lives roughly 50% of the population). Satellite digital TV appeared in 2004, providing coverage for the rest of the country, with both RCS&RDS and UPC-Astral having a stake in these companies. IPTV (over
DSL) is also planned by
Romtelecom through its TV service (Dolce), after offering Satellite digital DTH TV. However, IPTV will not be much of a competition, since the other two big ISPs are also the two biggest CATV providers.
Cable TV is very cheap for all standards, the standard/basic service, offering about 50 channels, is around 20-30
RON/month including
VAT (about 7-10
€), with the most expensive service, offering 10-15 channels more, including some
pay-per-view such as
HBO or
Cinemax, costing no more than 60-70 RON/month (around 20-23 €).
Republic of Ireland
Main articles: Cable television in the Republic of Ireland
Switzerland
In
Switzerland, virtually all households have cable TV. Ironically, despite this good coverage, Switzerland has only a few public TV stations (two each for the German, French and Italian-speaking parts of the country); additionally, there is now only one upstart commercial network with coverage comparable to these state-run channels. To watch news or political information, Swiss channels are preferred, but in the entertainment sector (feature movies, comedies, talk shows), private TV stations from Germany, France and Italy are dominant.
United Kingdom
In the UK Cable Television had its origins in 1938, when the first Community Antenna TV systems were set up in towns including
Bristol and
Hull, for homes which couldn't receive transmissions over the air, operating on the national standard
405-line system. In the 1960s
Rediffusion Vision was setup to provide cable television in the newer 625-line and
PAL formats.
In the early 1980s Rediffusion Vision supplemented its service with other channels including
The Music Box,
Mirrorvision,
Lifesyle Screensport,
Sky Channel and TEN. The service was renamed to
Rediffusion Cablevision.
In the
United Kingdom, the current generation of cable television began in the late 1980s with the issue of franchises to many local operators. These small operations proved uneconomic and there has been a continuing process of consolidation and re-financing.
By 2000 the two principal cable operators were
NTL and
Telewest. NTL's cable service was originally known as CableTel and grew rapidly through the acquisition of, among others, ComTel (which itself had bought
Telecential), Comcast, Diamond Cable and finally, in 1999, the residential and small business operations of
Cable & Wireless. Telewest acquired local cable operators including
Eurobell (Plymouth and Sussex) Cable London (North franchise) Birmingham cable and large franchises in the North East and North West of England. The original Telewest cable-co was created after mergers of United Artists and General Cable in the mid 90's.
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 3 March 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'' on
2007-02-08 creating a single cable operator covering more than 95% of the UK cable market.
There are a small number of other surviving cable television companies in the UK outside of NTL including
Kingston Communications (
East Riding of Yorkshire),
WightCable (
Isle of Wight) and Smallworld (previously WightCable North) (
Ayrshire,
Carlisle and
Lancashire).
Cable TV faces intense competition from
BSkyB'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 as the
DVB-T multiplex owners are finding FTA broadcasting more profitable.
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. 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 programmes 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 is digital freeview TV using an aeriel, but also incorporates on demand TV, delivered over a broadband connection and displayed on a Television. This service was started due to high broadband speeds in the UK. There are plans for a 100 MB/s to be offered.
Oceania
Australia
Cable television services have been available in
Australia since 1991 or 1992, with
Galaxy TV being the first. It became insolvent in 1997, due to decreasing popularity with the launching of
Foxtel and
Austar in May of 1995, two cable services that offered more variety than Galaxy TV. Foxtel immediately commenced in supplying programming to Galaxy's subscribers on an interim basis. In 1999 Foxtel was able to significantly boost its customer base by acquiring Galaxy TV's subscribers from the Australis Media liquidator and commenced offering its services on a satellite television platform. There are currently two major and four minor cable television providers in Australia -
Foxtel and
Optus TV. Minor providers include
Austar,
TransACT,
Bright Telecommunications and
Neighbourhood Cable, which only operate in limited areas.
Like the United Kingdom, cable is a minority means of receiving access to subscription television in Australia. Satellite distribution is more common.
Due to its history, financial backing and market dominance, most local versions of channels are either owned directly by Foxtel and Austar or through related companies.
In terms of coverage,
Foxtel's cable network covers parts of
Sydney,
Melbourne,
Brisbane,
Adelaide, and
Perth.
Optus's network covers small parts of
Sydney,
Melbourne, and
Brisbane, though its restrictive subscription rules means that many people living in apartments or confined living areas may be unable to be connected.
Austar is available by satellite in most of regional and rural Australia, but does have a small cable network in the city of
Darwin.
TransACT is only available in the city of
Canberra, where a custom cable network was developed. A similar situation used to exist in
Perth where a small area was covered by
Bright Telecommunications (however they closed down after lack of funding) as well in parts of
Geelong,
Ballarat and
Mildura that are reached by
Neighbourhood Cable.
New Zealand
TelstraClear operate a cable television network in Wellington, Kapiti and Christchurch. Customers can subscribe to plans incorporating between 25 and 95 channels. Most content is offered on behalf of Sky Network Television however some channels such as TBN, Discovery Travel and Adventure and Deutsche welle are broadcast exclusively through TelstraClear.
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
broadband internet and
cable telephony.
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 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 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, telephony and Internet access is commonly called '
triple play' regardless of whether CATV or
telcos offer it.
See also
★
DVB-C
★
North American cable television frequencies
References
★
MSO Service Availability Testing Solution
1. [1]
2. http://www.http://www.zf.ro/articol_123324/romania_are_cea_mai_mare_rata_de_penetrare_a_televiziunii_prin_cablu_din_balcani_.html Romania has the highest penetration rates for cable in the Balkans - Ziarul Financiar
External links
★
ThisIsCable.com
★
Digital Straight Talk
العربية
ä¸å›½
Français
Deutsch
Ελληνική
हिनà¥à¤¦à¥€
Italiano
日本語
Português
РуÑÑкий
Español
