Cable TV companies are running out of bandwidth and may have trouble bringing HDTV channels to your house, at least in numbers that compare well against satellite TV and the upcoming fiberoptic systems proposed (and piloted) by Verizon and other phone companies.  David Lieberman, in his latest column, gathers the facts that tell a very interesting story.  Here it is in a nutshell.

Consumer adoption of HDTV is growing quickly. According to Morgan Stanley, HDTV will be in 26% of US households by end of year, and over 2/3 of homes by 2010.  As HDTV becomes more prevalent in homes, demand for HD content will increase dramatically.  And with only a finite amount of bandwidth in coax, cable companies have their backs up against the wall. According to Lieberman, 70% of cable bandwidth is being eaten up by analog content, which is viewable without a set-top box on a cable-ready TV.  So cable TV providers only have bandwidth remaining to distribute a dozen or two HD channels.  That puts them far behind satellite TV and phone companies.  DirecTV and Echostar both plan to launch additional satellites to add up to 150 HD channels.  Verizon wants to connect fiber to your home, and bring you 210 HD channels.  (Verizon has tested its TV service in "50 communities" across 7 states.)

So what can cable companies do?  Well, they have two options:

1. Drop analog channels, and replace them with HD content.  For each analog station that's dropped, three HD channels can be added.  But, cable-ready TV owners will be forced to pay an extra $5-10 per month for a set-top box or face a dwindling list of channels. (Comcast is going this route.)
   
2. Implement a "switched digital" solution.  All analog stations would still be sent, which means no loss of service for cable-ready consumers.  But, digital channels would only be sent when requested by the digital set-top box (like video on demand, which has high latency on my cable service).  But guess what -- CableCards then become obsolete since they can't be used for this two-way communication.  (Time Warner and Cox are going this route.)

No matter how you slice it, there are going to be victims of progress.  Especially in February, 2009, when the big digital TV switch becomes a reality.