6.1 Streets and communities

Driven on by the ever-extending quality and quantity of available programs in many areas of life interest, CATV and SMATV continue to grow globally. CATV can be construed to stand for either cable or community television, but SMATV is universally understood to mean satellite master antenna television sometimes termed SDTV, or satellite distributed TV, in the United States. At the dawn of the third millennium a conservative estimate puts the number of CATV subscribers in the main economically advanced nations at around 200 million mainly in the United States, Europe, and Japan. When China and India are included this figure probably exceeds 300 million, and if homes passed are added the total of actual and potential subscribers must be around the one billion mark.

The average annual growth in numbers of CATV subscribers is indicated in Figure 6.1. From the millennium transition level of around 180 million subscribers globally the number changes little at first due to the Y2K recessionary effect. Then after 2001 the inexorable rise resumes and total numbers are forecast to reach over 500 million by the year 2010.

Figure 6.1 Global CATV growth 2000 2010.

Digital TV (DTV) and cable modems represent further important drivers for the expansion of CATV and SMATV. Cable modems permit relatively high-speed Internet access and these are therefore becoming highly popular.

Unlike off-air broadcast TV, satellite TV (DBS), CATV, and SMATV all have the advantages of enabling relatively large numbers of channels to be delivered...