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In fact, the cable TV of the twenty first century really isn't the same technology as the cable TV of the nineteen eighties. Of course, it's still transmitted over buried cables and it's still TV, but those are about the only similarities. For example, where the cable TV of the past was transmitted using an analog signal, the cable TV of the present is transmitted digitally. That means that there's computer equipment on both ends of the transmission serving to optimize the signal. For this reason, the cable TV of today delivers a much cleaner and more pure picture and sound than analog TV ever did!

The improvements don't just end with picture quality though. They also extend to ways of giving more information and control to the viewer. For example, the eighty channels that used to be available through cable TV provided a lot of programming to keep track of. The solution to this problem used to be a single channel that had a couple of hours of program listings scrolling at the bottom of the screen. There was no way to control the speed of the scrolling and if you missed something, then you'd to wait for that channel to come up the next time. This wasn't really tolerable for the eighty channels of yesteryear, so it definitely wouldn't do the job with the three hundred channels available through cable today! The digital solution is an on screen program guide which can provide information about what's on every channel- sometimes days in advance of when a program comes on. This program guide also presents a program listing table, but it allows viewers to control what information is displayed at any given time. It's a much better alternative for keeping track of what's on thirty channels or three hundred.

Modern cable TV companies also provide access to advanced technologies like Digital Video Recording, Video On Demand, and High Definitiion Television (HDTV). Digital Video Recording works with the on screen program guide to allow a the cable receiver to record specific TV shows a hard disk so that they can be watched later. Thanks to the computerization of the device and the fact that it can be easily programmed, the viewer doesn't even have to be there when the DVR is recording! Video On Demand lets viewers select what they want and when they watch it- without having to record it ahead of time. HDTV is a special TV format that brings the big screen experience of real movies into the living room. All of these technologies can be intermingled as well so that HDTV can be recorded on a DVR, or watch on demand.

Cable companies (providers) have also extended their services to include high speed Internet and phone service, both of which are far superior in performance and value than what you'd ordinarily get from independent providers.