But on Jan. 11 of that year, television in America turned a technological corner when eight stations on the East Coast and seven Midwestern stations were linked via the first long-distance coaxial cable.

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In an analog system, all cameras need to be wired directly back to a central recording system using analog cable (typically RG-59 or RG-6 coaxial).

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Whether it's phone wire used for dial-up and digital subscriber lines (DSL), or the coaxial cables that carry cable modem connections, these connections are a bottleneck between the carrier's big pipes and your bandwidth-starved computer.

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