The future of the media is digital. It is a known fact that data reduction and data compression lead to a multiplication of transmission capacities. Another effect of the digitalization is compatibility of transmission methods as well as compatibility of the equipment.
Digitalization makes it possible to overcome the separation between different networks.
On the other hand, it is possible to transact phone conversations and to use Internet applications over broad band cable networks. For the user of the new media it seems possible that phone, TV and PC could soon melt into one single multimedia-terminal, which unites all the aforementioned forms of communications into itself. So digitalization allows accessing multimedia networks with multifunctional terminals. In Germany the transition to the digital world is planned for the year 2010. It can be expected, that then approximately 50 percent of the spectrum of the frequencies will be freed up for new multimedia uses.