If you live outside of the big cities in the United States satellite HDTV may be your only option to receive HDTV signals as some of these areas are outside of the reach of cable or over the air providers.
Satellite HD programs are provided by two main suppliers, Direct-TV and Dish Network. The two networks offer more or less the same in the way of channels including ABC, Discovery, ESPN, HDNet, NBC, TNT and Universal. For an additional subscription you can also enjoy Fox Sports, special NBA and NFL events coverage and Showtime. Dish Network also has VOOM HD channels, which include Family Room, Gallery, WorldSport and World Cinema.
As the demand increases the companies are expanding by launching more satellites. More are planned during 2007.
The downside of satellite TV is that in rural areas you often can't watch the local channels because they aren't yet available. To receive these you will need to install an additional antenna on your rooftop to receive the over the air broadcasts from the local stations. Each HDTV satellite channel uses ten times more bandwidth than a regular channel, so to broadcast all the local channels as well would exceed the available bandwidth very quickly, rendering it all but impossible at this time.
As always though, things are changing and research and development work is going on to improve the way that data is transmitted. Some big cities are already able to receive local channels on satellite HDTV.
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