Word: optically
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...Instruments, are developing proposals for HDTV standards in the U.S., which will be chosen by the Federal Communications Commission by spring 1993. Even a digital system has its disadvantages. For one, the signal is so rich with information that it may have to be delivered to homes on fiber-optic cable, which is expensive to install...
Under the FCC proposal, telephone companies would be allowed to package and deliver a smorgasbord of television programming, including shows already carried by cable systems and broadcast stations. The programs would be transmitted via a so-called video dial tone, carried over fiber-optic cable, which would cost the phone companies billions of dollars to install. Defending their turf, cable-TV operators contend that the phone companies would have an unfair advantage because they could subsidize their video service with profits from their phone business...
...telecommunications services. Last year a software glitch at a New York City switching center disrupted AT&T's nationwide network for seven hours, and last January a repair crew in Newark shut down service to millions of consumers and businesses when workers accidentally cut a high-capacity fiber-optic phone cable. Last week's misadventure will not enhance AT&T's reputation for reliability and could persuade some customers to farm out more business to the company's rivals MCI and Sprint...
...real explosion in electronic services may have to wait until U.S. homes are rewired with hair-thin fiber-optic cables that can carry hundreds of times as much information as old-fashioned copper cable. So far, the fiber-to- home project has been bogged down in Washington politics. The technology exists, but the question is, Who pays? It will cost an estimated $150 billion to $500 billion to rewire America. Regulators have opposed phone-industry attempts to stick ratepayers with the bill. Cable-television companies, meanwhile, are also overlaying their old networks with optical fiber. With fewer restrictions...
...France will have nearly 17,000 miles of fiber-optic cable for transmitting anything from cable television to videophone signals. Three years later, France Telecom plans to begin installing video-phones in homes. The decision to go heavily into videophones is a gamble along the lines of the Minitel giveaway, which cost the treasury more than $1 billion. But France is well positioned to be a major player in tomorrow's telecommunications market. It has already signed contracts with Mexico, Argentina and Britain...