In 1983, the government broke up the phone company monopoly. Back then, if you wanted phone service, you could only lease the phone from the phone company, and the phone could only do what the phone company said it could do. Up until 1983, it was typical to have one telephone. It was illegal to buy a phone from somewhere else (overseas), but people still would find a way to get around this monopoly. Once that monopoly broke up, the cordless phone came along, along with fancy new phone sets. Thus, once the market is unleashed, the innovation is extraordinary. Now, we are in the midst of that in the cable industry! Starting July 1st 2007, you will be free from buying the cable companies cable box. For a while, this will only be noticed by techno-nerds. Around Christmas 2008, this will be a craze! The technologies that will be unleashed will be phenomenal! DVR and electronic devices may have one cable signalone device sending signals all around the house! You can feed the internet, such as YouTube videos or other signals, onto your TV. You will be in control, not the cable company! Remember 1999 with Replay TV (that preceded technologies like Tivo.) No one understood that for years. Its the same with the new cable technology.