Cable television is a system of distributing television programs to subscribers via radio frequency (RF) signals transmitted through coaxial cables or digital light pulses through hybrid fibre coaxial (HFC) networks. This contrasts with traditional broadcast television (terrestrial television) in which the television signal is transmitted over the air by radio waves and received by a television antenna attached to the television. FM radio programming, high-speed Internet, telephone service, and similar non-television services may also be provided through these cables.
The abbreviation CATV is often used for cable television. It originally stood for Community Access Television or Community Antenna Television, from cable television's origins in 1948: in areas where over-the-air reception was limited by distance from transmitters or mountainous terrain, large "community antennas" were constructed, and cable was run from them to individual homes. The origins of cable broadcasting are even older as radio programming was distributed by cable in some European cities as far back as 1924.
Read more about Cable Television: Description, How It Works, Cable Television Deployments, Other Cable-based Services, History and Beginnings of Cable TV-originated Live Programs
Famous quotes containing the words cable and/or television:
“To be where little cable cars climb halfway to the stars.”
—Douglass Cross (b. 1920)
“It is not heroin or cocaine that makes one an addict, it is the need to escape from a harsh reality. There are more television addicts, more baseball and football addicts, more movie addicts, and certainly more alcohol addicts in this country than there are narcotics addicts.”
—Shirley Chisholm (b. 1924)