Posted by Chris on June 14, 2009 at 20:39:14:
In Reply to: Question about wireless cable/dish...how far away are we? posted by Don on June 14, 2009 at 20:38:12:
"I have a question for you technology experts. I'm sure there will be some inevitable concerns, such as security, but how far are we away from cable/dish companies going wireless? I would think we shouldn't be that far away from a day where you wouldn't need a dish on the roof and wiring all over the house in order to get programming."
My guess is that, for content delivery purposes (to your house), the dish is about as wireless as it's going to get for a long time. Now, I suspect you may be thinking about wireless access to various TVs in your house.
For that, there would need to be some sort of wireless router and it would have to have a lot of bandwidth to provide a great picture (from different channels) to each TV. Probably provided from an internet-type of provider who pipes it into your home. Best way to do that is still via fiber-optic cable. Alternate is via dish, but you lose some of the back-and-forth communication ability.
Is it possible? I'd say yes. However, I also think that it will be a long time before it becomes worth doing. At least 10 years.
Cell phone systems (another potential content delivery source) have their spectrum limits and that may cap some of their delivery technology after a while. Unlikely that they'll deliver a wireless stream of hundreds of channels to you over the air anytime soon. They'll have enough of a challenge delivering full wireless internet service as the files become bigger and bigger. Anyhow, that's my guess.