There has been considerable debate over the past fifteen years as to whether cable TV or satellite TV is the superior way to get high quality TV in the private home. The truth is that it really depends on your overall situation, but in general satellite TV will probably provide the better service for you and your family.

In order to understand why satellite TV is superior to cable TV, you need to understand a little bit about the way that the both work as well as some of their history. Cable TV and satellite TV have actually been around for about the same amount of time. The major difference between the two used to be that cable TV served people in cities and suburbs while satellite TV served people in rural areas. Another important distinction was that satellite TV didn't have a very wide customer base in the beginning. This was due to the fact that it was expensive and required the installation of a large satellite dish. Of course the cost would have come down if more people had signed up for satellite TV service, but too few people could afford to sign up for it in order to bring the price down. It was something of a paradox, and the fact that the necessary satellite dishes were so huge didn't help the situation either.

In the early nineteen nineties things changed though. Suddenly there was technology available that could not only deliver satellite TV more cheaply, but also deliver it without the use of the ten foot wide satellite dishes. The newer satellite dishes were less than three feet in diameter which meant that they could be installed in the suburbs and even many locations in larger cities. This really increased the number of people who could subscribe to satellite TV, and thereby decreased the cost of the service.

One technical aspect of satellite TV that has always made it more attractive than cable TV is the fact that it can provide a lot more channels than cable TV can. This is because of the bandwidth limitations that cables impose on the number of channels that can be transmitted to subscribers. The electromagnetic waves and satellites that satellite TV services use to transmit their programming simply have much greater bandwidth than a cable. This also makes it easier for satellite TV providers to offer HDTV channels to their subscribers.

In addition to more bandwidth, satellite TV also offers the advantage of mobility. Naturally, you need a satellite dish to pick up satellite TV signals, buy you can take that satellite dish with you when you travel or when you move to a new home. This means not having to deal with the inconvenience of disrupted TV service when moving. On top of that, many people who live in RV's bring their satellite dishes with them so that they can enjoy TV no matter what. In addition, you can live anywhere and still get satellite TV- so long as there's electricity. Of course with cable, you have to be connected to a cable network.

Naturally, there will be circumstances where cable TV makes more sense, but satellite TV is a better choice in the vast majority of cases.