I’m not sure I’ve ever been in a house with pre-existing coax, apart from possibly an antenna connection. Is this a US thing?
(I still see it in new construction, though if I was having a build done I'd say run multiple Ethernet instead of any coax)
Cable TV became common in the 1980s (around here). So distribution is just a question about point of entry.
Are the aussies and UKensians that different?
Source: I worked at a TV/electronics shop in the early 90s.
Digital, broadcast TV in the UK is mostly received by radio broadcast or satellite broadcast, so the house would only have the appropriate cables from certain rooms up to the roof. Thinking of the houses I lived in, it wouldn't have been practical to put a router of any kind up there.
From recent UK statistics:
- 95% of households have at least one television
- 30% receive TV over satellite
- 13% by cable
- 80% by IPTV
- 48% by terrestrial radio broadcast
- 96% have broadband internet
That's 13% of houses using their cables for a TV subscription, so more than that number have the cables available, but some big chunk probably had it installed to a single room in the 1980s and have never expanded it — the kitchen and the kids' room use terrestrial broadcast.
Exactly that. When we redid the floors i our apartment we renewed the electrical wiring and added ethernet and coax. The coax was intended for radio/tv.
There is however an overlap of people who have the foresight to add coax cabling also add ethernet a well.
If I was was re-doing today I would add more empty pipes and fiber.
Cabling ahead has a very high WAF (Wife Approval Factor) when adding new gear :-)