Lo-Res, 6 mb - Making Connections - Time Warner Cable

TOP
Feisty Philo T. Farnsworth battled with his scientific
rival Vladimir Zworykin for the right to the title of “father”
of television.
RIGHT
Then–U.S. Commerce Secretary Herbert Hoover, in
Washington, D.C., was featured in a 1927 television
demonstration originating from AT&T’s Bell Laboratories in
New York. The New York Times doubted the technology’s
commercial use.
Broadcast vs. Wired
8 Making Connections : Time Warner Cable and the Broadband Revolution
Wired television systems were a novelty item in
the postwar period, which was dominated by the
broadcast networks. But that fact doesn’t convey
a fully accurate picture of the development of this
truly revolutionary medium. As early as the late
1800s, television as a technological concept was
in wide circulation among scientists and engineers
in Europe and the United States. The word
television itself appears to have been first used in
1900. And AT&T was studying the transmission
of visual images over wired systems as early as
the 1890s. In fact, it was years before wireless
transmission was considered remotely feasible. 4
By the 1920s, television technology had made
significant strides—despite the long-running
patent disputes between the rival “fathers” of
television, feisty independent Philo Farnsworth
and RCA-backed Vladimir Zworykin. AT&T gave
a public demonstration of television in 1927 at
Bell Laboratories in New York, with then–U.S.
Commerce Secretary Herbert Hoover speaking
in Washington. A front-page article in The New
York Times described the technology as “a photo
come to life,” while adding, “commercial use in
doubt.” The rudimentary television signal was
carried on phone lines and via a radio link. 5
As improved television images required more
bandwidth, AT&T turned its attention by the late
1920s and ’30s to coaxial cable, an early version
of which had been used for high-volume trans-
Atlantic telegraph lines. As opposed to the
“twisted pair” of copper wires comprising the
phone company’s voice circuits, coaxial cable
consists of a single copper wire running down
the middle of a “pipe” composed of copper or
another metal. Holding the central wire in place
in the tube is an insulating material such as hard
rubber or polyethylene spacers or discs. This
coaxial configuration—the central wire axis within
the axis of the outer tube—provides for transmission
of much greater bandwidth than traditional
twisted pair circuits, especially at the higher