Gatekeepers and Pipe Dreams: Who Controls the Bandwidth, Controls the Future

by Charles Mohnike
Winter 1997

It doesn't come up much at cocktail parties, but the term bandwidth is one that you'll soon be hearing often as telecommunications corporations vie for the right to bring information to your TV screens and computer desktops. In the least technical terms, bandwidth is the space that a TV signal, radio signal or information stream uses as it travels over a wire or through our airwaves. Bandwidth is important because it determines the capacity a system has for moving stuff from here to there. To increase a technology's bandwidth is a lot like using a larger pipe to deliver water to your home: the bigger pipe you have, the better your water pressure. Larger bandwidth allows audio, video, or data signals to zip from one point to another faster and with greater efficiency, getting more information to the end user in a shorter time. In the right hands more bandwidth can mean better picture quality on your television, more sophisticated software for your computer, or faster access to the Internet. In the wrong hands, greater bandwidth can simply deliver 10 times as much junk at 10,000 times the speed.

Broadcast TV

A standard TV broadcast offers a simple illustration of bandwidth in action. You flip on your set and technology does the rest, with your antenna drawing in signals that travel the airwaves in pre-determined "channels," or portions of the broadcast spectrum set aside specifically for individual stations. By changing channels on your set, you select which portion of the spectrum you want to receive, and thus which station's content you will view. Until recently, TV broadcasts relied strictly on analog methods to transmit sound and video, with signals traveling in waves and varying in their frequency and amplitude. Newer technology relies on a so-called digital format and compression, which is information packaged as tightly as possible and transmitted as a series of pulses. The bottom line with compressed digital data is it takes less bandwidth to transmit, and it easier to transmit reliably.

Starting in the 1950s, television bandwidth was governed under the Communications Act of 1934, a model developed to serve radio transmission. The Federal Communications Commission regulated the broadcasting spectrum by allotting chunks of bandwidth to individual stations. In exchange for the privilege of building their business on public property rent-free, broadcast stations agreed to serve, in theory, as public trustees to "serve the public interest, convenience, and necessity. . ."

By the 1970s there was a growing concern that the three major networks--ABC, CBS, and NBC--weren't living up to their part of the bandwidth bargain, and that the "public service" clause of the Communications Act had fallen by the wayside. Viewers had become more critical of the relatively homogenized view of the world presented to them by the Big Three. In response, new broadcasters and the public turned increasingly to a pair of developing technologies, cable and satellite, to increase their television choices (see below). With the signing of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, wireless broadcasting received a breath of new life that may ultimately return many viewers to their antennae. The Act will free up additional bandwidth for broadcasting by next year, including a wholly new portion of the spectrum with an even greater capacity for transmitting signals. It also lays the groundwork for a new, more efficient standard to send broadcasts from place to place--digital TV. In much the same way that compact discs turn music into binary data, digital TV condenses both audio and video signals into a series of electronic pulses. These on-and-off signals are more efficient than standard analog sources, meaning that end users receive slightly better picture and sound quality, and markedly better reception from remote stations.

How this additional bandwidth will be utilized is thus far up to the broadcasters themselves, a fact that has sparked bitter controversy among viewers, broadcasters, and regulatory agencies (see sidebar, page XXX). One option is to use the improved bandwidth to send a High Definition Television (HDTV) signal. Though they require special sets to receive them, HDTV broadcasts boast about twice as many scan lines as current TV standards, six-channel CD-quality surround sound, and a wider aspect ratio that brings the viewing experience close to that of projected 35mm film.

Some broadcasters might also choose to use this more efficient bandwidth to transmit more than a single channel, however. Instead of a single HDTV signal, stations may instead air as many as six Standard Definition Television (SDTV) signals, basically more of the same goods we're watching now.

Cable TV

During its rise in the '70s, viewers and programmers alike regarded cable television as something of a messiah. Proponents hoped that cable's increased bandwidth would open the broadcasting market to new stations and thereby move the industry away from the Big Three networks then dominating wireless. Could wider bandwidth mean wider culture? Executives like former NBC president Fred Friendly praised the new medium, envisioning, ". . . 40 picture channels, several digital display screens, virtually unlimited stereo music positions, (and) a facsimile newspaper."

Obviously we're still waiting today for most of these innovations to be explored, but cable has unarguably succeeded in solving most of the bandwidth problems presented by traditional broadcasting. It does this by bypassing the airwaves completely and relying instead on a direct station-to-user connection via an RF coaxial cable. Such connections are virtually free from the interference of the atmosphere, physical objects, and geographical positioning that plague wireless broadcast signals, resulting in a very efficient signal delivery system for a variety of data.

These advances in reception quality and channel choice didn't come without a price however, and cable marked the beginning of subscription television, a model under which users are charged for their viewing privileges. By using set-top decoder boxes and inline scrambling techniques, networks and other content providers can choose which portions of the cable bandwidth each user sees. Cable technology afforded the development of premium channels, in which special content-to date, almost exclusively entertainment--could be sent to only those viewers who'd requested and paid for it. It was a new way of using bandwidth, and it means that broadcasters no longer have to tailor their content to mass tastes.

Only recently have cable companies begun to examine the use of their broad bandwidth beyond simple one-way video transmissions. Most promising is the development of the cable modem, a device that has large telephone companies worried. A computer connected to the Internet via a cable system is capable of extremely speedy data transfer: a large image from the Internet that takes 6-8 minutes to download to a home computer over a dial-up phone connection would take only about a second by cable modem, for example. Combine this with cable's inherent ability to transmit real-time audio and video signals--a practice not yet realized in dial-up Internet connections--and it's obvious that cable providers will be major players in determining how and where we receive information in the next decade.

Satellite Dishes

Gaining popularity in the late `70s and `80s, C-band satellite dishes gave users the increased bandwidth and channel choice of cable. But if a viewer had $1,500 to spend on hardware and sufficient room for an eight-foot dish, early C-band receivers could intercept that same content anywhere in the world-for free. Cable and wireless broadcasters had long been using satellite transmissions to move their signals from remote studios to local stations. C-band users were simply "cutting in" on these low-power analog broadcasts by pulling in any signal that happened to be bouncing through space, including network transmissions, premium cable channels, and news feeds. But in the early 1980's broadcasters began to realize the value of the bandwidth they'd been giving away. Premium movie channels like HBO were among the first to begin scrambling their transmissions, requiring that users subscribe to their service just as cable users had been for years.

Companies using the new Direct Broadcast Satellite (DBS) dishes maintain a similar pay-as-you-go policy, but the necessary hardware differs significantly from the older, larger C-band dishes. DBS dishes point at a single satellite, rather than many, but because of the many services emerging to meet a growing viewer market, users can still choose from up to 500 channels. Many such services also offer delivery of high-speed Internet connections, making them yet another threat to the telephone company's long-time stronghold in online bandwidth.

Hard Media

The often-forgotten players in the bandwidth wars are the developers and manufacturers of compact discs, VHS tapes, game cartridges, and other hard media. Technology watchers point out that if TV and computer delivery systems can develop bandwidth capable of real-time delivery of movies-on-demand, high-quality digital audio, and sophisticated computer software, end users may one day no longer opt to purchase media on physical storage devices. Improvements in the security of online transactions may lead to a digital marketplace in which data travels directly from source to buyer.

Until that time, the hard media industry continues to circumvent bandwidth concerns by offering storage devices that deliver higher quality and quantity than is possible by even the fastest wireless or cabled transmission. The new DVD (Digital Versatile Disc) format, for example, can hold gigabytes of information on a disc no larger than a standard CD, and can deliver that information as fast as a television, computer, or CD player can accept it.

Telephone Lines and The Internet

Throughout the Net's history, modem manufacturers have constantly been challenged to build devices that would deliver greater bandwidth over a standard twisted-pair phone line. The new 56K modems on the market appear to have reached the limits of sending data by phone, and with both cable and satellite providers developing exponentially faster Internet connections, the large phone companies are scrambling to keep up.

Recent innovations such as Net-top boxes, which are Internet-enabling television set-top boxes, and PC/TVs, which are PC-enabled televisions, represent the first steps in closing the gap between television and computer. But neither can function as a true multimedia delivery system until present bandwidth limitations are licked. Software companies are experimenting with more progressive compression techniques. These can double or triple the effective bandwidth of a given line by packing and unpacking data as it streams along a connection, making it possible to send motion pictures and CD-quality audio over relatively low-speed lines.

Despite major strides in compression technology, many industry watchers say the real solution to the Net's bandwidth trouble is simple: Just build a bigger pipe. The large telecommunications corporations are now retrofitting urban communities with fiber-optic cabling, a promising technology designed to send digital bursts of light over fine strands of glass. The result is an extremely high-speed connection that can deliver a variety of digital signals including data from the Net, standard telephone conversations, and full-motion audio/video.

"You can never be too rich, too thin, or have too much bandwidth," went a once-popular saying among network specialists. Once we worried that we'd never have enough of the stuff, that the desire for richer content and more information would forever challenge the technology used to deliver them. Today, industry movers including Bill Gates and techno-pundit George Gilder predict that advances in hardware and delivery systems will give us unlimited bandwidth in the next decade. If they're correct, then the question of the next millenium will be "Who controls the pipes?" With monster telephone and cable companies battling for control of Internet access, and broadcast, cable, and satellite TV providers all competing for our viewing hours, it's safe only to say that the stakes are enormous.