History of Cable TV
Cable TV (CATV) is a means of providing television through radio frequency signals that are again transmitted to televisions by means of fixed optical fibers or coaxial cables. Cable TV service has been delivering people varieties of entertaining channels from long time back. Cable TV brings to people different programs that suits the taste of people of almost all age group. It includes programs of music , movies, sports, exclusive interviews and a number of other Television shows. Cable television, also known as Community Antenna Television or CATV originated in the mountains of Pennsylvania in 1948 and it was started first by John Walsons and Margaret Walsons. Milton Shapp greatly innovated to spread it throughout the country. Today Cable TV is popular in Europe, Australia and Asia and in a number of other places.
Technology Behind Cable TV
In Cable TV, channels are divided into a number of frequencies and modulated over a single cable enabling the cable operator to propagate and distribute many channels on a fiber optic and coaxial cable direct-to-home. CATV works by spreading TV channels, FM radio, Data services and Telephony over a single wire.
Advantages of Cable TV
On Demand Service: Cable TV services enable the viewers to choose from a list of movies, sports, favorite shows etc and watch according to their wish.
No Overbuying Of Channels: Cable TV is more suitable to those subscribes who wants only a few favorite channels because Cable TV allows the users to choose their favorite channels instead of paying for many unwanted channels which come in a package as a whole.
Provision For Telephony Service: CATV has made possible telephony services along the same cable.
Bad Weather Hardly Affects: Cable TV remains uninterrupted due the presence of the coaxial cables and optic fibers but picture quality may sometime be affected. However grave natural disasters are somewhat exceptional cases.
No converter needed: Some Cable TVs are digital and so the subscribers do not have to purchase analog to digital converter boxes to receive regular programming.
Easy installation: Cable TV can be installed easily as there is no need to have a dish.
Disadvantages of Cable TV
More Expensive: Cable TV is very expensive if you want premium packages with movies. Statistics appear to claim that people enjoy lesser number of channels than the satellite TV viewers for the same amount of money.
Less Channels: Cable TV have less local and community channels.
No Interactive Feature: Cable TV does not have as many interactive features as Personal Video Recording (PVR) such as the one offered by the Satellite TV providers. This PVR allows one to pause,rewind and replay live TV and even record.
Limited Subscribers: CATV has limited number of subscribers. They hardly include subscribers among country dwellers as extension of the service in such places leads to more expenses.
Poor Quality Service: There is no co ordination between the cable operator and the cable provider company leading to poor quality of service and customer grievances..
Growth & Popularity:
Cable TV came into being many years earlier than the Satellite TV. Primarily ,till early 60s the Cable TV industry was concentrated within small communities of people. It however had a considerable growth between about 1965 to 1975. But in later years Cable TV growth particularly spurred by the introduction of Satellite TV Network service in the television service network market. The Satellite TV providers came up with larger capacity of delivering numerous channels without interruptions and also at a cheaper price. Today Cable TV’s growth and popularity has been somewhat lessened. People are more switching on towards Satellite TV subscription than Cable TV. A lots of efforts are being taken by Cable TV service Network to improvise improvements in their various fields but it is not able to overcome Satellite TV.
From the assessment made so far we can make an easy conclusion that Cable TV has undergone improvements by installing many new features and new attractive packages and thereby trying to increase its subscribers’ list.. But it cannot be denied that Satellite TV remains superior to Cable TV when numbers of subscribers and the service quality are taken in consideration. Today more numbers of homes are moving towards Satellite TV subscription resulting in less growth of the Cable TV network service.