This is Cable

FAQ

So why do we still call it “cable?”

It’s an acknowledgment of the industry’s heritage, when early pioneers literally strung lengths of coaxial cable from large television antennas to individual homes, so that television signals could be seen across rural communities. Cable companies still use plenty of coaxial cable, but the toolkit has grown over time to include high-capacity optical fiber lines and wireless transmission, too.

How do so many TV channels get to my home?

The physical transmission lines cable uses are able to carry a tremendous amount of electronic information. Far more TV channels can be packed into a cable line than can be transmitted using available over-the-air TV spectrum, which is why “cable” is known for expanding the range of television choices viewers can enjoy. That was true in cable’s early years, and it’s especially true now. With modern digital cable technology, cable companies have dramatically increased the number of channels that can flow across a single cable line. Today hundreds of television channels and thousands of On Demand movies and TV shows flow side-by-side within the same cable transmission facilities.

How does the Internet work over cable?
The Internet is a collection of computer data networks that talk to each other. But to do so, they need a means of physical transmission – a roadway for bits of electronic code to travel. Cable, as it turns out, is an ideal roadway. Thanks to some inventive work by engineers and developers, a portion of cable’s spectrum that was originally devoted to carrying television channels is now used exclusively for Internet traffic. And because there’s lots of capacity to begin with, more bits of Internet data can travel at a moment in time over cable than over other networks. That’s why the Internet is extremely fast over cable.

How are phone calls possible over cable?
When you speak, your voice, just like an email message or a photograph on a website, is transformed into computer codes. In the case of a phone call, the codes represent audio qualities such as volume, pitch, inflection and more. These codes are whisked along cable lines and connected to the broader public telephone network. On the other end, the person you’re talking to hears your voice in the form of reconstructed codes. Remarkably, it happens instantly. And because cable companies apply special treatment to voice traffic that flows across their networks, calls end up crystal-clear.