Cable operators could say there wasn't room for niche channels with the addition of bandwidth-clogging analog signals.

WSJ: Cable Must Air Broadcast Signals

Millions of cable customers have only the most basic service, sometimes with boxes that receive only traditional analog signals, which take up far more bandwidth than digital signals.

WSJ: Cable Must Air Broadcast Signals

So far 67% of Comcast customers have yet to switch from analog, which consumes up to 12 times the bandwidth of digital.

FORBES: Sony busts up the powerful cable-box duopoly.

At stake is a premium slice of 700 MHz bandwidth that is being freed up as analog TV stations transition to a digital format.

FORBES: Peeking Into The Spectrum Auction

Their phones are half the weight, have four times the bandwidth and are all digital, while most U.S. mobile phones are still stuck in the analog age.

FORBES: The Web Phone Evangelist

The new technology will finally let AM stations, long limited by bandwidth one-tenth the size of FM, broadcast in stereo at a quality equal to that of analog FM.

FORBES: Big Audio Dynamite