Can cable compete with satellite?
Our favorite online paper that we love to hate 'cause registration is still required, has laid out the challenge that cable is facing due to the pressure Dish and DirecTV is putting on cable operators all over the country. While both satellite providers have spent over a billion in to upgrade their networks for HD, cable operators are faced with much higher costs, to over come their bandwidth quagmire. With the CEA predicting that 50% of US households will have HD in 2009, there's a lot at stake. In the past month both Dish and DirecTV's stock is up 20% while Comcast and Time Warner Cable (also a Time Warner Company like Engadget) are down ~5%. Some cable co's are in more trouble than others, as according to Moto, about 20% of the US population's cable co's can't even do HD. The problem isn't only technology though, as Verizon's FIOS has what is comparably unlimited bandwidth, and yet their HD offering is worse than some cable providers.
Read: WSJ registration required
