Satellite TV has come a long way since it first hit the market in the early 1990s, not only were home satellite dishes costing thousands of dollars, but they were big enough to fill half your backyard. . They were expensive, cluttered, and offered only inefficient and unreliable signals.
Today, however, home satellite dishes are compact and can be easily placed on apartment rooftops and balconies throughout the United States. Although popular in the city, if you drive through rural areas outside of major cities, you’ll find them in almost every home.
Today’s home satellite dishes offer convenient, low-cost alternatives for rural areas where cable services are not offered, or relief for small towns suffering from the rising costs of the cable monopoly. In the past, consumers shunned satellite TV, but the benefits far outweigh the drawbacks that used to exist. In addition, satellite television has advantages that far exceed the characteristics of cable companies.
For many years, cable companies have been a stronghold among American consumers and the lack of alternatives left consumers no choice. However, all that is changing with the great options at competitive prices with satellite television.
So how exactly is satellite TV different from cable TV? The biggest difference is the method of delivery of information. Cable TV runs through underground and overhead fiber optic cables that deliver information. It is most easily related to a telephone cable: the information travels from the source (data center) through a cable to a receiver (cable box).
Satellite television is obviously information that is transferred from the broadcaster to a satellite and then to the home receiver. While the delivery method is different, all broadcasts, whether via cable or satellite, go through the same basic process: transmitting the information from the broadcast center, sending it to the client, and translating the information for display on a television.
While older satellite television systems were unreliable and susceptible to blackouts during bad weather, newer technological advances have virtually eliminated that problem.
Now, satellite television can be more reliable than cable television, although neither is perfect.
However, satellite TV can do something that cable TV can’t: It can provide more channels overall and more HD channels than any cable company in the US.
As you may have noticed, cable companies have been enticing customers to stay on cable by offering incentives such as service packages for discounts or free premium channels for 3 or 6 months. There is a bidding war between satellite TV providers and cable TV providers that is growing in intensity.
The reason competition increases is that satellite TV companies like DirecTV offer the best services, advanced features, and highest quality for less than what cable companies offer.
See for yourself; The benefits of satellite television far outweigh the benefits of cable. Customers receive many more features with higher quality and often at a lower price.