Cable TV... More, much more than television!

The PPV service offers stereo premiere movies through various channels that can be viewed by subscribers by paying an additional amount that is authorized with just one phone call to request activation. With this service, outstanding achievements of world cinematography are available and you can enjoy great actors whose names represent a special meaning within the current North American and European cinema.

Through the receiving antennas of the cable television service and using the respective decoder, dozens of digital quality music channels can be captured via satellite that can reach your sound equipment, through the use of a digital converter that connects to the auxiliary input itself.

The musical channels that can be enjoyed are diverse: you can listen to rhythms such as reggae, rap, dance, blues, jazz, ballads, country music, alternative music, new age, rock, metal, the works of the greatest composers in the world, symphonies, concerts, opera and even Christmas songs, if desired.

Internet access can also be achieved through cable TV services, without the need to use telephone lines. In this way, greater speed of communication with the network is achieved since it is done with a much wider bandwidth and with the possibility of simultaneously connecting several computers in the network with the same modem.

To send information, the computer browser is opened, and through the modem, the connection to the cable service is achieved, as long as it is in an area that has a fiber optic network. The signal travels to connect to an international access provider until the Internet connection is achieved. If what is required is to obtain information, the reverse process is performed.

If you have the connection to the cable TV service, you can also use e-mail through dial-in access. Although this access does not allow navigation, it does offer the possibility of streamlining communications by connecting the computer modem to a telephone line and requesting the service.

The fusion between television and the Internet begins to support many activities, including commerce. This aspect can already be evidenced by experiments that have been carried out in some countries. Such is the case of a fast food establishment that sought to check the scope of interactive television with interesting results that showed that 87 percent of people who watched the commercial on television preferred to place their order using the remote control rather than the phone.

It is estimated that within ten years, television will be interactive and digital, and about twenty years later, it will bring together various technologies and become the largest source of commerce. As the advances are going, maybe it will be in less time... The most visionary entrepreneurs are convinced that, by that time, advertising should allocate about seventy or eighty percent of its budgets to this medium.

Another service, quite useful and practical, is that of surveillance of residential complexes or buildings through a closed circuit television system. By means of a video camera, residents connected to a fiber optic cable service receive directly on their television the images of what happens at the entrances or at another site of their building. It has the advantage of being able to perform this control just by tuning into a specific channel, while watching television. And it is ensured, in addition, that all the inhabitants of the building or set can personally carry out their surveillance.

At present, there are already interactive channels and work is being done on projects such as the "emission" of smells (an old attempt that was made a few decades ago in movie theaters) – through the connection of a synthesizer of aromas – and flavors. In addition, the fact that the viewer is connected by network will allow him to have a real interaction and will be able to participate directly, giving his opinion, making his request and, surely, defining the development of his favorite series as if he were one of the librettists.

With all the advances that are being achieved, not only in relation to cable television specifically but with new technologies in general, transnational ties will be strengthened but, paradoxically, the individual will be a less sociable being since he will be able to do many things without leaving his home. It may not even be necessary to leave it to have business meetings because for this some time videoconferencing has been implemented, resources that in the near future, may even have "built-in facial translation". Yes, as it reads "facial translation": With this technology a person can speak in front of the camera in one language, while whoever receives his image, is listening to it in another language, according to his needs of understanding.

Progress is also being made in the "synthetic interview" through which a person can interrogate virtual characters and even, although it seems fictional, recently dead people, according to the researchers. And in the Walkie-Talkie camera you can send digital photographs to a computer, through radio waves, where they will be stored on your hard drives.

Another novelty in this matter is the "teleinmersion", a virtual reality project in which, through the placement of special glasses or contact lenses and a helmet, it is possible to enter a fantasy world generated by a computer. It's not much different than the interactive VR games found in some of the amusement parks.

In 25 years, in addition to the waves of transmission of radio and television signals that surround us today, we will live in an electronic world in which a single network will be able to do everything, because in one place will be the telephone, the computer and television channels. And the cyberspace around us will be filled with images, words, and sounds on which—whether we like it or not—much of our life will depend.