Cable television and Open Computer Network

The article describes information network and CATV applications, backbone network structure. Cable is a natural network for carrying high-capacity, bandwidth-intense information. In the age of analogue program signals, cable´s capacity was a natural transmission mediafor broadcast color TV and high-fidelity stereo sound programs. In the new digital program signal age, cable´s high capacity is a natural network for carrying interactive computer-based, data-intensive multimedia programs. The introduction of the Open Computer Network (OCN) providing Internet like services, will lead to higher-level demands by users. For example, users will be asking for higher quality, greater functionality, and lower charges for high-speed, high-throughput data transfer. To respond effectively to the wishes of sophisticated and varied users, technology development must be pursued from the user´s point view. For this reason, research and development is being performed on middleware to open up network functions and make it possible for the user and network to cooperate with each other. This article discusses the development of major technologies for achieving an enhanced OCN (next-stage OCN) which should become a catalyst for the future multimedia network, and presents a future vision for the network.