approval from:
russotto 
| It's because Cable has more options The simple answer is cable has more options than the satellite services. They have the new technologies like expanded bandwidth from DOCSIS 3.0 and switched video. If they introduce a switched video service where they only send the channels down the node that are actually being watched then they have plenty of bandwidth and can continue to use their existing set-top boxes. That saves them some money while providing the customer more bandwidth, or more channels, or just a better quality (less compressed) picture.
With the satellite services they can only add on new satellites (very expensive) or find a way to get more channels in the same bandwidth like MPEG-4. It makes sense for them to move to MPEG-4 quickly since it provides them with some immediate benefits. I suspect the cable companies will do the move eventually but with their expanded options they don't need to do it yet. |
