Technical Insight
Digital Satellite Will Continue to Lead Cable in Subscribers (Markets, Materials and Equipment)
Digital satellite transmission services such as digital Direct To Home (DTH) will continue to dominate digital cable TV in the race to replace analog transmissions, says a report by Cahners In-Stat. According to Worldwide Digital Satellite & Cable TV Services, digital satellite subscribers will be almost twice as numerous as digital cable television subscribers in the next 5 years. The report also notes in the last decade the number of worldwide cable TV subscribers has doubled to 280 million, but currently only 11.7 million subscribe to digital cable. The growth of satellite and cable services is good news for GaAs. In satellite systems, GaAs MMICs are used to send and receive millimeter-wave signals. For cable systems, set-top boxes and cable modems require components such as low noise up- and down-converters, as well as video and data tuners, which can be implemented using GaAs. See .
