Future prospects of the cable TV networks: New technologies and new services

Hoffmann, A. Quisquater, Jean-Jacques [UCL] Macq, Benoît [UCL]

This paper reviews the future prospects of the cable television networks. New technologies are going to affect profoundly the sector, with the growing use of optical fiber cables and the introduction of digital compression and transmission methods. It will be possible to transmit four digital TV channels inside the bandwidth previously occupied by a single channel. New services become available, such as Pay Per View or Video On Demand. Smart cards provide optimal solutions to the critical access control issues. In the longer term, a convergence of the cable television networks and the broadband communications networks can be expected.