| cable TV companies are running out of bandwidth and may have trouble bringing High Definition Television (“HDTV”) channels to your home, especially when compared to satellite TV like DIRECT TV.
Consumer adoption of HDTV is growing very rapidly. According to Morgan Stanley, HDTV will be in 26% of US households by end of 2006, and over 2/3 of homes by 2010! As HDTV becomes more widespread in homes, the demand for HD content will likewise increase dramatically. However, with only a finite amount of bandwidth in coax, all of the cable companies have their backs up against the wall. According to recent reports an estimated 70% of cable bandwidth is being absorbed by analog content, which is viewable without a set-top box on a cable-ready TV. Thus, cable TV providers only have bandwidth remaining to distribute a dozen or two HD channels! That puts them very far behind satellite TV. DIRECTV on the other hand plans to launch additional satellites to add up to 150 HD channels nationwide.
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