Cable television is a system of delivering television programming to consumers via radio frequency (RF) signals transmitted through coaxial cables, or in more recent systems, light pulses through fibre-optic cables. This contrasts with broadcast television, in which the television signal is transmitted over-the-air by radio waves and received by a television antenna attached to the television; or satellite television, in which the television signal is transmitted over-the-air by radio waves from a communications satellite orbiting the Earth, and received by a satellite dish antenna on the roof. FM radio programming, high-speed Internet, telephone services, and similar non-television services may also be provided through these cables. Analog television was standard in the 20th century, but since the 2000s, cable systems have been upgraded to digital cable operation.
A cable modem is a type of network bridge that provides bi-directional data communication via radio frequency channels on a hybrid fibre-coaxial (HFC), radio frequency over glass (RFoG) and coaxial cable infrastructure. Cable modems are primarily used to deliver broadband Internet access in the form of cable Internet, taking advantage of the high bandwidth of a HFC and RFoG network. They are commonly deployed in the Americas, Asia, Australia, and Europe.
Multichannel multipoint distribution service (MMDS), formerly known as broadband radio service (BRS) and also known as wireless cable, is a wireless telecommunications technology, used for general-purpose broadband networking or, more commonly, as an alternative method of cable television programming reception.
Data Over Cable Service Interface Specification (DOCSIS) is an international telecommunications standard that permits the addition of high-bandwidth data transfer to an existing cable television (CATV) system. It is used by many cable television operators to provide cable Internet access over their existing hybrid fiber-coaxial (HFC) infrastructure.
Rouzbeh Yassini, known as the "Father of the Cable Modem", is an Iranian-American inventor, engineer, and author, who has gained international reputation as a "broadband visionary" for his pioneering work in broadband industry and inventing the cable modem, establishing the cable modem industry standards (DOCSIS) through Cable Television Laboratories (CableLabs), the Society of Cable Telecommunications Engineers (SCTE) and the International Telecommunication Union (ITU). He is executive director of the University Of New Hampshire Broadband Center Of Excellence and Founder and board member of the YAS Foundation. Yassini is the author of “Planet Broadband”, a humanized look at broadband technology and its contributions to the society, as well as “Broadband Intelligent Series”, a series of white papers on digital services. He is a worldwide speaker and is often interviewed and quoted in the press for his vision on the future of broadband. His lifetime vision and dream is that all the people in the world have ubiquitous access to the broadband and be connected all the time. He believes that broadband connectivity is a fundamental right for all the human beings, what he has referred to it frequently as "Broadband Equality". Yassini was founder, CEO, and president of LANcity, the early pioneer in cable modems. He has worked with Cable Television Laboratories, Inc. (CableLabs) a research arm of the cable television industry in charge of the DOCSIS and on CableHome projects as the cable industry's point man on standardizing the cable modem's global footprint. He served as a senior executive consultant to the cable industry's CEOs while being president and CEO of YAS Corporation. He also has worked with Comcast and Cablevision on numerous programs relating to innovation of broadband technologies. From 2004 to 2007, Yassini worked with the CTO's office at Comcast to create the first industry standard IP-Set top Box specification known as the RNG specification. He has been involved in managing and advising companies ranging from $100 million to $50 billion and served as member of the board of directors on BAS, TrueChat, and Entropic from 2001 to 2008, and UPC Technical Advisory Committee. He created and chaired the Vendor and Operator Executive Advisory Forum of the U.S. Cable Center. He was a member of the Liberty Global Inc. (LGI) advisory technology board from 2001 to 2017. Yassini was director of Visteon from January 2015 to December 2020. As CEO and Chairman of Irystec, a Montreal-based firm founded in 2015 specializing in perceptual display processing technology, Yassini was able to successfully have the french auto company Faurecia acquire the company in 2020, despite the Covid pandemic. Working for more than 30 years in the broadband industry and achieving major accomplishments, Yassini received many awards from different organizations. He was named multiple times as CED Broadband 50 designate. CED Magazine named him “1998 Man of the Year” for creating and fostering the multibillion-dollar cable modem broadband industry. The National Cable & Telecommunications Association (NCTA) awarded Yassini with a 2004 Vanguard Award, the Cable Industry's highest honor in recognition of his contributions and dedication to the industry. The Cable Television Pioneers also inducted Yassini into the class of 2012 for his tremendous and meaningful contributions to the cable industry. He is a member of the Lane Department Academy as well as West Virginia University Academy of Distinguished Alumni.
Hybrid fiber-coaxial (HFC) is a broadband telecommunications network that combines optical fiber and coaxial cable. It has been commonly employed globally by cable television operators since the early 1990s.
A cable modem termination system is a piece of equipment, typically located in a cable company's headend or hubsite, which is used to provide high speed data services, such as cable Internet or Voice over Internet Protocol, to cable subscribers. A CMTS provides many of the same functions provided by the DSLAM in a DSL system.
CableCARD is a special-use PC Card device that allows consumers in the United States to view and record digital cable television channels on digital video recorders, personal computers and television sets on equipment such as a set-top box not provided by a cable television company. The card is usually provided by the local cable operator, typically for a nominal monthly fee.
PacketCable network is a technology specification defined by the industry consortium CableLabs for using Internet Protocol (IP) networks to deliver multimedia services, such as IP telephony, conferencing, and interactive gaming on a cable television infrastructure.
In computer networking, link aggregation is the combining of multiple network connections in parallel by any of several methods. Link aggregation increases total throughput beyond what a single connection could sustain, and provides redundancy where all but one of the physical links may fail without losing connectivity. A link aggregation group (LAG) is the combined collection of physical ports.
DOCSIS Set-top Gateway is a specification describing how out-of-band data is delivered to a cable set-top box. Cable set-top boxes need a reliable source of out of band data for information such as program guides, channel lineups, and updated code images.
In telecommunications, cable Internet access, shortened to cable Internet, is a form of broadband internet access which uses the same infrastructure as cable television. Like digital subscriber line and fiber to the premises services, cable Internet access provides network edge connectivity from the Internet service provider to an end user. It is integrated into the cable television infrastructure analogously to DSL which uses the existing telephone network. Cable TV networks and telecommunications networks are the two predominant forms of residential Internet access. Recently, both have seen increased competition from fiber deployments, wireless, mobile networks and satellite internet access.
In telecommunications, an IP Detail Record (IPDR) provides information about Internet Protocol (IP)-based service usage and other activities that can be used by operations support systems (OSSes) and business support systems (BSSes). The content of the IPDR is determined by the service provider, network/service element vendor, or any other community of users with authority for specifying the particulars of IP-based services in a given context. The IPDR specifications were originally produced by the Internet Protocol Detail Record Organization, Inc.. In 2007, the IPDR.org organization was acquired by the TM Forum, an industry association of more than 900 global members in over 160 countries from across the converging industries of telecom, cable, media and the Internet. The IPDR specifications include requirements for IPDR collection, encoding and transport protocols to exchange IPDR records, the IPDR service specification design guidance, and several sample IPDR Service Definition documents. The IPDR specs are maintained and continue to evolve at the TM Forum Interface Program. The President/COO of IPDR was Kelly Anderson and the technical team lead of IPDR from 2004 until it was Amit Kleinmann of Amdocs.
Navini Networks was a company that developed an Internet access system based on WiMAX wireless communication standards. This access system was subsequently acquired by Cisco Systems in October, 2007.
Com21 was an early pioneer in developing cable modem networks in the era before the standard DOCSIS was introduced for Internet access via cable television networks. The company filed for bankruptcy in 2003.
Avram Miller is an American businessman, corporate venture capitalist, scientist and technologist. He served as vice president, Business Development for Intel Corporation (1984-1999). With Leslie L. Vadász, he co-founded Intel Capital. He led Intel's initiative to help create and expand residential broadband Internet access.
Subisu Cablenet Ltd. is a Nepalese Internet Service Provider company located in Kathmandu, Nepal, and was established in 2001. Subisu employs over 1500 full-time employees, of which around 900 are technical and around 700 are non-technical. As of 2023, the company has over 235,000 customers. It has coverage in all 77 districts of Nepal. Subisu primarily provides cable & fiber internet and Digital TV services through a hybrid fiber-coaxial (HFCC) network. The Internet and 280+ TV channels that it offers provides support to Nepal's educational, entertainment, professional and other sectors. It is the first and the only cable internet service provider in Nepal.
Ziggo Holding B.V. is the largest cable operator in the Netherlands, providing digital cable television, Internet, and telephone service to both residential and commercial customers.
Hitron Technologies is a Taiwanese company founded in 1986 as a telecommunication equipment supplier and headquartered in Hsinchu City, Taiwan.
Shlomo Rakib is an Israeli electrical engineer known for his work on Orthogonal Time Frequency and Space (OTFS) and other engineering topics. He is the holder of several patents and co-founder and current Chief Technology Officer of Cohere Technologies, which he had co-founded with Ronny Hadani. He also co-founded Terayon in 1993.
