From: utzoo!decvax!harpo!utah-cs!haas
Newsgroups: net.misc
Title: Cable TV and the First Amendment
Article-I.D.: utah-cs.1015
Posted: Mon Sep 27 18:34:49 1982
Received: Thu Sep 30 09:20:01 1982

It's true that cable TV seems to be treated as a natural monopoly in
most markets, although I'm not sure that it should be.  However, so what?
The Post Office is about as natural a monopoly, but nevertheless each
individual is able to control what the Post Office brings into his/her
home.  If I want to read Playboy and my neighbor doesn't or vice versa,
each of us can have what s/he wants.  One reason I raised this issue here
is because it seems to me it would be possible to build the same privacy
protections into the technology.  For example, by choosing to subscribe
to a certain established magazine or not I can pretty well predict what
range of things I'm going to get - eg. I can subscribe to Scientific
American with little fear that the next issue will contain a centerfold
of a naked female, and I can subscribe to Playboy with little fear that
it *WON'T*.  So, why not build the cable TV technology with different
enciphered channels with cipher assigned according to content - cipher
A for G movies, cipher B for PG movies,...,cipher D for X movies.  Then
you would have your house drop wired by the cable company to bring in
only those ratings that you want, just as you subscribe to magazines that
contain only that type of material you want.  It seems to me that this
would answer any legitimate complaints about what the children would see.

Incidentally, the Salt Lake valley is already served by a "cableless" TV
network called Channel One, which broadcasts a microwave signal to the
whole valley (yea, even unto Bluffdale, heaven forfend!).  You are
supposed to rent a microwave receiver/converter to pick up the signal -
however some of the more enterprising and/or dishonest folks around have,
of course, flanged up the appropriate hardware and are now watching for
free.  Channel One isn't enciphered yet, but supposedly it will be in
the near future (or they'll lose their market!)

-- Walt Haas