What is CATV?
Originally meant Community Antenna Television. Independent smaller companies in rural communities would build a large television receiving antenna on a nearby mountain to pick up the weak TV signals from a distant metropolis. These signals were amplified, modulated onto television channels and sent along a coaxial cable strung from house to house.
This abbreviation has two interpretations. The first is Community Antenna TeleVision, and generally refers to the origination of cable TV – when the cable network operators had large antenna’s that received the broadcast signal, which they would in turn re-distribute to the subscriber. A more recent usage is Community Access TeleVision – which refers to the content that is typically available from the local cable operator on their in-house station.
