Digital cable is a generic term for any type of cable television distribution using digital video compression or distribution. The technology was originally developed by Motorola.

In 1989, General Instrument (which was later acquired by Motorola) demonstrated that it was possible to convert an analog cable signal to digital and transmit it in a standard 6-MHz television channel. In the 1990s cable providers began to invest heavily in new digital based distribution systems. Increased competition and programming choices from Direct-broadcast satellite services such as DirecTV, Dish Network, and PrimeStar caused cable providers to seek new ways to provide more programming. Customers were increasingly interested in more channels, pay-per-view programming, digital music services, and high speed internet services. By 2000, most cable providers in the US were offering some form of digital services to their customers.

Digital cable technology has allowed cable providers to compress video channels so that they take up less frequency space and to offer various two-way communication capabilities. This has enabled digital cable providers to offer more channels, video on demand services (without use of a telephone line), telephone services, high speed internet services, and interactive television services. In addition, digital cable technology allows for error correction to ensure the quality of the received signal and uses a secure digital distribution system (i.e. a secure encrypted signal to prevent eavesdropping and theft of service.)