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- THE WEEK, Page 24HEALTH & SCIENCELook, Ma, No Cable!
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- The FCC gives a tentative green light to video via microwave
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- How many ways can you take in the tube? Between broadcast
- television, cable TV, fiber-optic cable, digital compressed
- cable and variously sized satellite dishes, there may soon be
- as many delivery systems as there are channels to choose from.
- Now the FCC has added yet another wrinkle to videotic variety,
- tentatively approving a nationwide television-transmission
- system much like the one used to send and receive cellular phone
- calls.
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- The new system, developed by a New Jersey firm called
- CellularVision, has been operating in Brooklyn since July. It
- uses microwave signals of such high frequency that they can
- bounce off buildings and still be received by a window-mounted
- antenna no bigger than a magazine. The system, which could be
- available throughout New York City and in other major TV markets
- by mid-1994, can deliver as many channels as cable TV without
- the expense of having to wire up each individual home -- a
- prospect that could threaten the virtual monopoly that many
- cable companies currently enjoy.
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