By

Ronnie Miller

Cable, what is it but out dated technology? Just like any thing in the world, it has its limitations. Cable is made up of a small fiber trunk connected at limited locations, (called nodes), to coaxial cable that is then strung throughout the city, like an extension cord being hook to all your appliances in your house.

Think of a cable wire and compare it to a garden horse VS a water pipeline. Would you put out a massive fire with a garden horse, or would you use a fire horse? Now think about this, would you try to supply all the water needs of a large city with a garden horse, a fire horse, or would you choose a large water pipe that is designed to handle a city?

The analogy of a water pipe is perfect to understand the benefits and limitations of a cable wire. A small size pipe is ineffective against greater demand than the pipe was made for.

A coaxial cable can only handle so much data before quality is affected . The data can be in the form of television channels, Internet, and phone service. The important thing to know is that a cable wire is out dated technology. In the phone industry, they call the cable wire a ds3 or a t3. Companies, depending on their demand for data, would order a t1, a t2, or a t3 (what we call a cable wire) Each of the wire classification contain a certain number of data channels on it. A t1 is equal to 24 phone lines or 1.4 Megs of uncompressed data. A t3 is designed to carry 672 data channels but not an infinite number.

To further understand why cable is out dated technology, it is important to realize that when a business uses a t1, t2, or a t3 it is installed as a private line. The only person connected to the t3 is the business that ordered it. The reason is because when a t1, or even a t3 is shared, it cuts down on the quality of the signal by hindering bandwidth. For example, a phone company will connect a group of homes to a T1, t2,or a t3 line to route traffic back to the central office where all phone calls are processed. However, they will only use one channel per call. This explains why sometimes when a person goes to make a call he gets a message that says all channels are busy. When a company orders a “T” line, The t1, t2, or t3 line is completely private all the way back to the central office. However, the cable industry connects everyone on the node, more than 500 households. A cable company sends TV channels, phone service, and data over the t3 line. In order to get 1.5 Megs of high speed internet, for just one business, it takes 24 channels. Hence, a cable company is over utilizing the cable wire.

Years ago when cable first began, it started off as an idea to put a large antenna on a hill and string a cable to a close by town. People would pay to get a better reception of local channels. The ds3 or coaxial cable wire worked great for the limited demands on it.

As the cable industry grew and more and more channels were launched, cable began to reach its limitations. Subscribers started seeing lines and picture distortions on channel two, three, four, and so on. People started to have greater outages.

The rise of satellites and small home dish receivers bought competition to the cable industry. After all, the cable companies got their signal direct from satellites, why shouldn’t the subscriber? For awhile it looked like the cable industry was going out of business.

The introduction of different technology has extended of the cable industry demise for a short while. Cable companies started combining fiber trunks with digital data compression in order to keep expanding their offerings.

Suddenly subscribes were told they were getting fiber in their neighborhood. Companies put up new coaxial to replace the worn wires of the past. Subscribers started getting many more channels, thanks to digital compression. Many in the cable industry claimed that this digital compression picture was the same digital, high quality picture offered by the satellites companies. However, it is not.

Comparing digital compression technology to the 100 percent digital picture of a satellite is like comparing a garden horse to the main water pipeline of a city. The satellite has maximum bandwidth and the best picture quality for the home signal.

The cable industry is in great trouble. The reason is that the limitations of the pipeline is being max out by the desires of the cable industry. The wire is also subject to decay of the elements. Therefore, as time goes on, the cable wire will need to be replaced with multiple coaxial wires or replaced with fiber because the quality will continue to decline as cost increases.

However, cable companies have been unable or unwilling to afford the investment of updating their systems. For now, cable companies are happy just to repackage the outstanding quality of satellite and compress the signal to their customers while claming to their customers that a satellite signal is bad.