Mark Evans

Wireless Cable?

After recently moving into an 60-year-old house and having an army of utlity people swing by, it struck me what the cable industry needs is wireless technology to eliminate the need for cable outlets throughout the house - much like high-speed Internet has become an any room, any time service.
With TVs getting more mobile as plasma and LCD technology becomes more widespread, it makes the concept of cable-TV modem/converters and cable-reception adaptors more plausible. In a way, it would be a local version of multi-point mulit-channel distribution service (MMDS) used by about 250 cablecos in the U.S. Apparently, wireless cable is in development by a group led by Texas Instruments that would use “ultra broadband” technology to deliver the service - perhaps some time next year.
I'm not sure whether cablecos would want to explore this kind of technology given they can currently track how many outlets are being used, and they can charge for each one if they wish. You'd also have to see changes within the television industry to accomodate wireless technology, but that does not seem to be much of an obstacle as more TVs go digital. If anyone out there has some wireless ideas, bring 'em on.