Comparison of Satellite and Cable Television

Just how do you get your pay television service at home, cable or satellite? Most everyone in the United States has a television in the home and pay TV companies know this, hoping to get your money on the basis of your need for entertainment. They hype the differences and highlight great introductory pricing to get you to absolutely want their service. Is it worth it? I will explore this with you here and help you understand the intricacies of the methods through which you get your pay television service in the home.

The Market
The competition between all of the pay television service companies is cut throat and with new technologies continually being introduced, they each try to capture some element of that market and combine it with their services in order to be cutting edge. Having worked for each of the world satellite giants, it became clear that the differences between these, cable, and the services they provide are few. Each company has the same digital programming quality, the same channels (if they pay for them), have basically the same hardware, and few have special differences that make them the market leader. All of it boils down to your personal preference for the equipment available, its ease of use, and the particular channels you like to watch.

Cable
Cable was the first to exist (1948) via open air antenna's (CATV), cornered this market and started creating networks of cable across the country over the next 60 years. Cable today has grown to include cell phone signal, Internet signal, and telephone service by doing business with the companies that want to provide these. Cable is, and will be for a very long time, the most comprehensive service provider for customers and dominates the market. There is no need for gimmicks to beat the competition. The problem is that if there is not a cable nearby, you cannot have it.

Eventually, in the early 1980's, an entrepreneur accountant recognized a new platform of television service as new technologies were being introduced and seized the moment, eventually growing his company to being one of the satellite giants today. Satellite television was new and the use of space technologies to provide it was exciting to consumers as it could reach customers nowhere near a cable network. The customers that live in rural areas are still bound to few choices today as satellite is still the only thing available.

Satellite
Have you ever wondered where satellite signal comes from in the first place?
Satellite signal is sent to each company's respective satellite that they own and share amongst them from their uplink centers located around the country. Uplink centers take the signal, clean and digitize it, and send it via the airwaves to their satellites that sit in "parking spots" in earth's orbit. The satellite then receives, decodes, records, and recodes its digitization for decoding by the receiver in your home and it "shines"the signal back to earth in areas called "footprints". If you are inside of a "footprint" area and have that satellite company's receiver, you can watch the programming on your Television. Satellites have the ability to "shine" signal anywhere, giving them an advantage over cable, which has limited areas. Satellite requires equipment to be attached to your dwelling and is not allowed at some apartment buildings, so each has their advantages and disadvantages. One satellite company launched a new, very expensive satellite in 2008 that was going to provide HD programming for an unprecedented number of channels and outdo the competition, but experienced a problem and the satellite did not reach the orbit it was supposed to, leaving it "shining" signal to less than a one state coverage area. Who is paying for that error? One of the technology gimmicks that the satellite companies offer are on-the-go type portable collector plate (dish) that was supposed to fuel the future; not the greatest success stories with these. Satellite signal is also not able to be regulated by the FCC and individual states because it comes from outside the earth's atmosphere, but this is slowly changing as the United States Government looks to find a way to regulate it.

Cable and Satellite
So where do the uplink center's get the signal to code for their satellites?
The truth is they get it from cable companies. Yes, they subscribe to cable just as you would at your home and they code that signal at uplink centers for the satellites to distribute. That is the reason why some satellite companies only offer certain channels in their programming packages and others don't., they have to make deals with the cable company. This is not to say that these companies don't have their own studios for making their own TV programming (usually commercials and company messages), they do but the bulk of the channels that you see throughout all of the companies services are from the same place. Cable certainly did capture the market before satellite did and it still does. Without cable television, the satellite companies have nothing. This accounts for all of the companies' infighting, legislative decisions by our government, and high pricing for pay TV. They each want to rule the market yet are dependent on one another to provide services to their customers. Cable is now charging satellite companies triple the cost of the programming because of their market domination and greed, causing the satellite companies to pass these costs on to their customers just to stay afloat in this market. If you have lost channels from your satellite programming package, it is because cable raised the price for it and no agreement could be met.

The price negotiations continue between satellite companies and the conglomerate cable company resulting in the competition between them. Satellite providers do not want to pay the high cable prices either, owning as much as they can get would put them in the best situation for domination, but the United States Congress continues to thwart this by preventing monopolies. Either way, the customers will pay the costs for the cable prices and for the costs created by litigation, new technologies, and attempted market domination by all companies and platforms. So far, cable still rules its market.

So which is the best?
They all have high definition digital signal, the same tiers of programming packages from small to everything, the same channels, and the same answers when you call them for whatever reason. Deciding which is best is a personal choice depending on your choice for programming, disposable income, and even the politics between them. I have met many customers that like a company because of how they appear in their market, the more shrewd companies tend to be last choices. Satellite companies are seen as shrewd because of their higher prices and they own rights or have contracts for certain programming they provide and do not share it, such as "NFL" Football; no one likes to have limited choices these days. In the end, cable owns it all, no matter if under contract with others or not, and when cable decides to strike its blows to satellite providers, you will pay the price.

Cable tends to be the best because they can readily pipe other technologies through their cable with the television programming offering "bundles" for telephone and Internet for the same cost as just the television programming with a satellite company. Bundling with satellite companies will save you a nominal amount on your monthly billing and you will have to call the telephone company you bundle with to take care of bundling issues as the satellite company does not do that. Many customers do not like this and eventually get upset. I have had both satellite and cable, bundled with both, and the only difference between them is their equipment, receiver, and remote. Nothing else is different as it all comes from the same place in the end, cable.

Review
1. Cable and satellite companies offer the same products despite their competitive intensity to offer products others do not.
2. Satellite has great coverage area from east to west and north to south, cable does not
3. Cable is less expensive for what you get without having to install equipment to your dwelling and bundles more services than satellite for less money
4. Satellite gets its programming from cable to upload it to their satellites for broadcasting back to earth which leaves us all paying for cable television in the end.