Hot Battle For Viewership Between Comcast And Verizon Cable Vs Satellite Directv And The Dish


by Georg E - Date: 2007-02-06 - Word Count: 484 Share This!

The battle for ultrasharp, high-definition channels that gobbles up bandwidth is in full swing. DirecTV satellite broadcaster announced recently that they plan to offer 100 high definition format channels to their lineup. At this juncture they have 20 high definition channels.

The largest cable company (Comcast cable TV) is spending 5.7 billion dollars on upgrades. By integrating all their services for phone, computer and TV in a digital format, they seek total domination for any given household. The "triple play" consists of a bundle of TV, speedy Internet access and digital (VOIP) phone service.

Cable TV providers need to increase their high-definition network capacity to stay competitive. Their plan is to add more HD channels as well as high-definition movies-on-demand. The high-cost upgrades are necessary to keep up with surging bandwidth demands and rapid growth of Internet video.

Comcast has the largest footprint in the cable industry. According to Comcast, their cable wiring passes 47.4 million U.S. households. Out of those only 11.5 uses their Internet services and 24.2 million their video services.

Verizon is also in the battle-front for fiber-optic services and plans to spend $23 billion to rewire residential areas. Verizon project a huge increase in Internet customers and TV subscribers as the upgrade's progress. This is good news for the consumer in that more competition should spell better competitive prices for individual and bundled services.

Unfortunate for many local customers, Verizon will not prioritize expenditures in areas where Comcast already competes and will concentrate on rewiring areas that promise higher returns to their bottom line. Verizon overlaps about one-third of Comcast's service area.

DirecTV the world-leading provider of digital television entertainment, satellite-based private business networks, and global video and data broadcasting to more than 15.5 million customers, is also beefing up their services. They already have hundreds of channels of digital-quality video pictures and CD-quality audio programming. DirecTV signals are transmitted via high-powered geosynchronous satellites. With the planned launch of two additional dedicated HD satellites next year, DirecTV is poised to offer even more ultra-sharp HD programming.

In the coming months, look for video-on-demand, a gaming lounge and software that enables your television to interact with your personal computer. With new upgrades, in a few more months, 97% of U.S. households will be able to access DirectTV and 70% HD high-definition local channels.

The digital video recording arena is also heating up. EchoStar Dish TV has said it devised its own on-demand TV recording technology for its Dish Network satellite TV customers. TiVo has sued EchoStar for patent infringement violation. TiVo digital video recorders have 2 million DirecTV satellite television customers and has agreed to provide services to rival Comcast cable TV.

As the segment of homes with HD televisions grows and advances in interactivity with one's personal computer complement the entire spectrum for home electronics, the battle for bandwidth and providers heat up. More competition between providers will give the consumer better technology, better choices and hopefully, lower prices.


Related Tags: digital, television, high, voip, tv, bandwidth, satellite, directv, dish, definition, direct, hd, hd tv

Georg Evers is a writer for Direct TV, Dish TV, DSL and Wireless a website which reviews the best online deals for Direct TV, Dish TV, DSL and wireless phone services.

Your Article Search Directory : Find in Articles

© The article above is copyrighted by it's author. You're allowed to distribute this work according to the Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs license.
 

Recent articles in this category:



Most viewed articles in this category: