Cable networks: Fewer TV connections, more digital TV
In 2008, Swiss cable networks gained customers in the areas of broadband Internet, cable telephony, and digital TV. The number of cable TV subscriptions, however, fell slightly by 0.48 percent to 2.9 million.
Swiss cable networks were able to gain customers for broadband Internet, cable telephony and digital TV in 2008. Broadband Internet via cable increased by five percent and cable telephony by ten percent. In contrast, the number of cable TV connections fell slightly by 0.48% to 2.9 million.
The potential of digital cable television must be better exploited, as the industry association Swisscable announced at its general meeting on Friday. It is true that almost 110,000 customers were acquired last year (+27 percent), so that by the end of 2008 around 510,000 households had subscribed to digital cable TV. However, the digitization rate of around 18 percent for cable TV shows that analogue cable TV is still very popular. Swisscable President Hajo Leutenegger is quoted in the press release as saying that the analog offering in Switzerland is very good, which is why the switch to digital TV is only taking place slowly.
The potential of digital cable television must be better exploited, as the industry association Swisscable announced at its general meeting on Friday. It is true that almost 110,000 customers were acquired last year (+27 percent), so that by the end of 2008 around 510,000 households had subscribed to digital cable TV. However, the digitization rate of around 18 percent for cable TV shows that analogue cable TV is still very popular. Swisscable President Hajo Leutenegger is quoted in the press release as saying that the analog offering in Switzerland is very good, which is why the switch to digital TV is only taking place slowly.
High performance of cable networks
High-definition HDTV has become an important driver of digitization. Around one in three people who switch to digital cable TV also subscribe to HDTV. According to Leutenegger, it is important that cable TV companies communicate the performance of their networks better to their customers. The capacity of the cable networks is far from exhausted: with technical upgrades, bandwidths of more than 100 megabits per second are quite realistic. The cable TV companies want to strengthen on-demand services.
