Abstract
After its first foundation in 1987 cable TV facilities in Japan are increasing rapidly.Recently in three months, its total number has almost doubled from 134 at the end of march 1992 to 251.In spite of such a rapid development, it seems, there exist, even among facility-undertakers, some misunderstanding and some cinfusion as to the significance of cable TV, which prevent the full realization of its potentiality.points at issue are, (1)cable TV is often confused with CATV(Community Antenna Television), and' (2)cable TV is often misunderstood as another television.Owing to its iteractive and multichannel charactors cable TV can provide new services other than broadcasting, such as security service, telemetering, data transmittion, regional telephone and facsimile servce, home shopping, etc., and , in this paper, examples of these new services actually pffered in Japan are presented.What the author emphasizes are, (a)these new sevices qualify cable TV as new integrative regional communication infrastructure, and (b) full understanding of this fact is indispensable for its actualization.
