Cable TV providers are fighting it out with satellite TV providers to see who can deliver the best service, most cutting edge technology, and ultimately win over the majority of customers by doing so. Unfortunately for the cable companies, when you look at a satellite TV company like Dish Network, there's simply no way they can compete.
Dish Network has cable companies beat hands down in terms of value. Programming packages from Dish Network start at about twenty dollars while most cable companies won't give you anything for less than seventy. Dish Network also offers a lot more for the money. Dish Network has hundreds of available channels, while most cable companies offer up to 100, and almost none offer as many as 150. With fewer channels comes fewer options. Dish Network can provide extra programming including foreign language packages, seasonal sports subscriptions like NHL on the Ice, ESPN Gameday, NBA League Pass, and MLB Extra Innings. Cable can't. Dish Network provides free equipment upgrades like digital video recorders, HDTV equipment, allows you to bring satellite TV into extra rooms of your house at no extra charge. Cable television doesn't offer any free equipment and often charges $5 and up per extra room. With 29 available HDTV channels, Dish Network offers more high definition programming than anyone else in the industry. Some cable providers offer some HDTV programming, but in general HDTV is very limited over cable. Dish Network is also more reliable with significantly less outage time than cable companies. Combine all of that with the fact that cable rates have increased an average of 8.2 percent over the past few years, and it's amazing anyone still subscribes to cable television service.
Another major disadvantage of cable television is that it's only available in limited areas. In general, if you want cable you have to live in or near a mid sized town. Dish Network on the other hand is available anywhere you can set up a satellite dish and aim it at the southern sky. This makes Dish Network enormously more flexible than cable. Many people have dishes on their boats or RV's so they can enjoy their favorite show from anywhere. Dish Network also makes it easy to bring your television service with you when you move. Simply reinstall the system with the dish aimed south and you're back in business!
The reason why cable service is more limited and more expensive boils down to one issue: bandwidth. Band width is the amount of data that can be sent over any given medium. Cables by their very nature have limited bandwidth. They can be replaced with new cables with higher capacity, which the cable companies are doing, but they still have serious limits on the amount of data they can carry. Dish Network on the other hand, sends it's programming using electromagnetic waves which don't have nearly the bandwidth limitations of cables. The result is that satellite television providers like Dish Network can keep up with customer demand for more channels and data intensive entertainment formats like digital television and HDTV much more easily than cable can and without having to lay more cable every time the technology changes.
For value for the money, variety of programming, and delivering new technologies, satellite television providers like Dish Network are the clear choice over cable.