Archived report. This report was archived in 2006 and has not been updated. After its beginnings in 1948, Cable started to become popular in the 70s in the USA when premium cable services were introduced. The cable industry in the United States and Europe was in a sleepy backwater of the information industry, lagging behind satellite. During the first decade in the 21st century, however, it will play a far more major role. The cable industry will become another access technology in the converging markets of telecommunications, broadcasting, Internet and e-commerce. The first signs of this new trend started to appear in the late 1990s. Cable TV operators in the USA upgraded their networks and slowly started to add high-speed Internet services. These are seen as an important step to surpass satellite.
