The Power of Cable Television

S. clear been regulated since their creation by a complex and often conflicting electronic network of postulate and federal legislation and authorities. The federal Communications comprise of 1934 was the original, unifying effort of the "New Deal" administration of Franklin Roosevelt to embarrass any one company (AT&T) from controlling the cost and approachability of think advantage or a few wireless networks (dominated by NBC) from ruling the airwaves. Of course, in 1934, video recording was only a dream, orbiter technology hadn't been dreamt of, and wireless telephones were the stuff of comic books.

In the past six decades, however, the technical revolution in telecommunications has changed the personality of the beast dramatically. The same can be said of the policy-making desire to regulate, deregulate, and reregulate the assorted technologies and industries which now fall under the prompt eye of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). As apiece new form of communications service has come into man or changed over the years, the 1934 Communications Act was eventually modified to maintain the regulatory relationship, and, in many cases, to preempt state and local regulation in order to promote popular service and technical standards. But has the need for such a pervasive regulatory environment reached its zenith? Many now moot so.

The federal regulation of telephone circuit television was formally codify under the 1984 Cable Communications

After all, cable television in most communities remain a government-sanctioned monopoly. Virtually irrevocable "franchises" are awarded to companies to dig up city streets and bury cable conduits (or to attach them to existing telephone poles, at a price negotiated with their owners), and to provide certain levels of service to subscribers for a fee. Cable franchise agreements typically last 10-15 years, and are essentially automatically-renewable (Marks, 1995, p. B6). The cost to build a cable ashes is substantial and, even in some of the largest cities, there was usually little incentive for more than one company to travail to establish a system. The natural result is essentially a monopoly.

Mandese, J. (1994, April 11).

Reinventing cable to find place on converging superhighway. advertizement Age, 64, pp. S-2, S-12.

Although the expansion into the digital realm requires additional hardware at both ends of the transmission, the benefit to consumers and system operators is enormous. Currently, analog wireless cable service is limited to about 30 channels. The conversion to a digitally-enhanced system could easily expand the capacity to at least(prenominal) 80 channels, and perhaps to as many as ccc if 10:1 compression is employed (Hallinger, 1996, p. 28).

The two forces which have historically inhibited the growth and expansion of cable television products and services have been regulation and technology. Head-to-head competition prior(prenominal) to the advent of wireless cable technology and quality, low-cost consumer satellite receivers (now being surpassed by DBS technology), were essentially non-existent because of legal barriers and other regulatory obstacles. But early cable systems with capacity of a absolute 20-30 channels also found technical upgrades to be cost-prohibitive in a regulatory climate that prevented them from recovering such swell costs very quickly, if at all, via rate hikes to consumers. Modifying existing bullshit wire networks with fibero
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