Ask This Old House Future-Proof Wiring by Steve Hayes Welcome to the Information Age, where your television is digital, your stereo follows you from room to room, and the lights are cued as you pull in the driveway. Well, we're not there yet. This bundle may look like a tangle of copper wire and spun glass cables but what it represents is bandwidth. In the good old days of the 1990s, most signals coming into your home were in the form of analog waves. Today most signals are currently sent in a digital form or will be shortly.
Digital transmission is the same language that a computer uses to talk to a printer.
Given that all electronics are becoming little computers, all of these pieces of equipment are beginning to talk digitally to each other. Once the digital language becomes standard, then the discussion will quickly turn to speed and that is where structured wiring comes in handy. The coaxial cable is the wire that connects our VCR to the television and can carry a variety of digital signals. HDTV and cable modems currently use this wire in your home. To allow information to flow both in and out of your home, for additional information-carrying capacity if needed.