Beginning February 18, 2009, analog signals will no longer be provided by broadcasters. Digital signals will be distributed as a substitute. However, upon the ruling approved by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) analog signal subscribers are guaranteed that they will continue to receive services from their cable providers until 2012.

Before we bid our farewell to the analog signal, let us first understand the difference between analog and digital signals. What is digital signal and why do we need to adopt it? These are few questions that we need to know.

Analog signals are created from continuous transmission of electrical signals. While analog signals are continuous, digital signals are discrete. Digital signals are represented by 0`s and 1`s and sometimes referred to as on and off. With digital signals as the form of transmission, cable providers will be able to provide better quality video since digital signals are more compressible than analog.

As an advantage with this move to digital signals, freeing those frequencies used for analog transmission will allow other agencies to use it as an expansion. Government agencies can now expand their reach by adding a space in the radio spectrum.

Most households today are still using televisions with built-in analog tuner. How will you be provided with this digital signal if your television set is not compatible? A digital-to-analog converter can be used. This device will receive the digital signal coming from cable companies and converts it to analog signals which can be processed by the TV set. In addition, high definition television set (HDTV) is now available in the market. This new breed of television set works with the digital signal and does not need any converter.