Word: fibered
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...story ranch house in Cerritos, Calif., is a high-tech battleground. The Hyatts, along with 58,000 other residents of this affluent Los Angeles bedroom community, are testing a futuristic cable-television service that is years ahead of conventional systems. Linked by 2,500 miles of hair-thin optical fiber, the network not only offers 78 channels of TV but also lets subscribers browse through the Sears catalog, check their bank accounts and select from a large menu a movie of their choice anytime they want. Perhaps most surprising is the builder of the sophisticated TV system: the local telephone...
...development of compressed fiber-optic wiring will give cable companies the potential to supply hundreds of programming channels in the home as well as interactive communications, movies and musical releases on demand, and digital information services...
With the fading of the technological differences and regulatory barriers that keep them apart, cable-TV and phone systems are trying to position themselves -- legally and financially -- to provide the expensive fiber-optic networks that can handle communications, entertainment and digital information of the 21st century. Some Bush Administration officials and other proponents of deregulation hope the result will be competing pipelines that can carry voice, video and digital information into homes, so that consumers will have more choices. More likely -- and probably more economically efficient -- only one company will end up providing the fiber-optic pipeline in each local...
...ISDN is the phone industry's grand scheme to be the dominant conduit for every conceivable communications service -- from faxes, newspapers and video conferencing to home shopping, radio broadcasts and TV. At least seven phone companies, including Pacific Telesis, Ameritech and BellSouth, are developing the ISDN software for special fiber-optic wires that can carry such multimedia information. But the companies need state regulatory approval for telephone-rate increases to cover installation costs. Public service commissions, however, have been reluctant to let companies raise phone bills to recover the investment...
...their new networks. These high-capacity systems could provide 300 or more channels in the future. In December, Time Warner (the parent company of TIME magazine) launched the nation's first 150-channel cable system. Located in the New York City borough of Queens, the 1,800-mile fiber network includes 50 channels of movies and is capable of providing interactive television. Time Warner is also planning to use extra channels on the Queens system to test a new portable phone service that could greatly expand the use of mobile communications. It is one of 32 cable companies developing...