Video-on-demand. High-definition television. Interactive TV. High-speed Internet. Voice over cable. All demand bandwidth ? the one thing operators can't increase without another expensive rebuild of their 750-MHz plant.

But recent major announcements by Pulsent and Lucent Technology's Bell Labs indicate that new technology may ease the squeeze.

Pulsent, a privately held Silicon Valley chip and technology maker, is boldly declaring that its new video technology is making the Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG) standard virtually obsolete. Company CEO Adityo Prakash says its new chip and coding combination can in effect compress video 400% more than current MPEG technology.

Bell Labs, meanwhile, says it has been able to double the amount of data it can push over a fiber backbone twice as far, smashing the previous record.

Cable operators should be pleased, says Carmel Group analyst Jim Stroud, but they should also be careful.

?No current company out there in any field that has laid wire to the home or even fiber to the home wants to continually upgrade their services, their plants,? Stroud says. ?But as new technologies come along that can deliver things in a much faster fashion, it's going to be more and more important for cable operators to go out and seek these new technologies, because this may help DSL companies even more.?

Indeed Pulsent is initially focused on DSL because executives see that industry as more open to the new technology, says CEO Prakash, although it is also working with cable set-top-box manufacturers.

?Say you want to deliver on-demand video services or broadcast services as part of a complete package over broadband infrastructures like DSL,? he says. ?Suddenly what you can provide is equal or better quality than your premium cable or satellite channels provide at 4 megabits, but you can do it at only 1 megabit.?

Currently, MPEG video is generally transmitted in 16-by-16 pixel blocks. Mathematic algorithms then try to find matching blocks from previous frames so that only blocks with new information are transmitted, saving bandwidth and storage.

Instead of tracking blocks, Pulsent tracks actual objects in the video. Because objects are less likely to change than blocks, it allows Pulsent to avoid sending unnecessary information.

The idea is simple ? but ?fiendishly difficult? to implement, Prakash says, noting that his company has 200 patents in the pipeline.

The implications for cable operators are enormous, though.

?With our technology we can deliver the same channel count as today, but in HD,? which requires four times the bandwidth. Prakash says. ?Doesn't that provide a significant value proposition for cable and satellite??

Pulsent has designed its chip to allow MPEG video to run alongside its proprietary coding. And the chip will fit into today's low to midrange digital boxes ? with a ?nominal? increase in cost, says the CEO.

While Pulsent has concentrated on video compression, Lucent's Bell Labs has taken aim at backbone data transmission, says spokesman Saswato Das.

Using new technology, the lab has now broken the previous record for data transmission ? 1.6 terabits a second over 1,250 miles ? by sending 2.56 terabits a second on a 2,500-mile fiber optic cable.

What Bell Labs has done is to use a combination of coding and other technologies to reduce the need for amplifiers, which currently must be placed about every 600 miles along the network. One part of the approach uses optical fiber itself as an amplifier by transmitting an additional signal at a slightly lower wavelength.

?This will enable lower capital and operational costs for customers because you will need fewer repeaters,? Das says. ?I can't predict when it will appear, but it shouldn't be too long.?

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