Cable Television History
Do understand how cable television came about, you have to first understand how television worked before cable existed. Yes, television was a real thing before cable, and there were no cables, just microwaves and rabbit ears.
There was a time, before cable (and long before satellite...) that television was transmitted through the air. Back in the 1950's, any standard television with an antenna, or 'rabbit ears', could receive broadcasts from the four channels (NBC, ABC, CBS and the DuMont Network). This worked out for people that lived in the line of sight of the broadcast antenna. If you didn't, you couldn't get television.
So, people in a valley in Pennsylvania took it upon themselves to find a way to get TV into their area. They came up with a plan to place their antennas on hills and run a cable directly to their television, and thus cable was born. Very early cable infrastructures were just that, an antenna that could receive the microwave signal which was then distributed to homes in the area.
The problem, though, was that as the infrastructure began to grow, signals began to fade. A system of amplifiers was put in place to help boost the signals to homes that were further away, but even then distortion was a frequent occurrence.
Cable and over-the-air television were still basically the same. They both worked off frequencies. The Federal Communications Commission allocated certain frequencies, or channels, for either very high frequency (VHF), channels 1-12 or ultra high frequency (UHF), channels 14-69. Unfortunately, with channels 1-6, one signal could be sent over the air and another one through the cable, both arriving at the television at different times, creating a double image called 'ghosting.' With new communications technology starting to develop, cable companies looked to the sky for answers.
As satellite communication technology became more popular and efficient, cable companies realized that they could add more programming to their system as well as reduce the interference by moving to a satellite-based system, which is exactly what they did.
On top of that, new cable technology was being developed, which led the companies to switch to a fiber-optic cable. The fiber optic cable could distribute more programming to more homes using much less cable.
The infrastructure hasn't changed from that, but the latest development came in a new form of data compression called MPEG. This took the signals from an analog to a digital format, which could provide nearly 1,000 channels to homes, many in high definition.
Cable has come a long way in a relatively short period of time, and rest assured, new technology will develop, especially since cable has been given a little competition from Satellite television, which is a battle that will be waged for quite a long time.
