Re:cable bandwidths (Score 1)

First, broadcast quality requires 5Mb, not 5MB. That's only an order of magnitude or so, but it does make a difference when deciding whether a result is reasonable.

Second, while I only watch one channel at a time, I watch over basic cable. The cable company doesn't know what I'm watching any more than broadcast companies do. It puts signals for all channels on the cable simultaneously. The total bandwidth used is the amount consumed by each channel multiplied by the number of channels. It's true that there's a significant error rate and that no single receiver or transmitter on the system sees the full bandwidth (so there are some technical and distribution challenges). It's also true that they won't get solved as long as the current IP framework prevents rational use.