Home satellite services and cable companies take their programming off of satellites. That being said, the cable companies may receive their programming from different satellites located in orbit at different locations. That's what the cable company's head end' has an array of receiving dishes at their site. Then they combine the signals and send it through wire cables to the receivers in your home.
With satellite TV, they too receive their programming of of the various satellites, but then return it up to their own satellites where they then directly retransmit the channels back down to you.
If you've ever seen a cable company's earth station (head end) you'll also notice that they have much larger dishes for reception than those who own home satellite set-ups. Their dishes need to be at least 5 meters across and sometimes, quite larger (for C-band systems as compared to the Ku-band systems) whereas a home receiving dish will be approximately 18" in diameter.
The larger dish of course, at the cable company, captures more of the satellites signal. The advantages of this is that in heavy rain or snow conditions, they're still able to receive the information and provide a video signal. With the smaller dishes, they're prone to having the signals blocked by heavy rain or snow and consequently, you could lose some, if not all of your signal. This fortunately has been corrected to some extent by satellites that retransmit with higher power than say, 10 years ago. The downtime due to heavy weather is minimal though, and averages probably less than one or two percent per year, on average.
I've had cable, DirecTV and Dish network, and the interruptions to weather aren't that significant here in the midwest. Do I prefer it over cable? Yes. Mainly because cable systems can be noisy at times because of poor connections and aging cables. Of course, that impacts the digital signals a lot less than the analog signals and soon it'll be a moot point.
What it really comes down to, is in the selection of the availability programming and fees. Used to be that cable offered one or two HBO options for around 10-11 dollars a month. Satellite systems offered the complete HBO lineup for the same amount (I think it was around 7 available channels at the time) for the same amount. That may have changed, so I can't make that claim any longer.
Satellite seems to be a few dollars less expensive than cable, too. And I'm happy to report, that out of the last 15 years I've been on satellite, I've never had to call the company to have them come out and fix anything.
A lot of the choices you'll make will probably be depending on program options, price and availability. There are some situations where satellite systems will not work because the dish has to point to the southern sky. If buildings, trees or other obstructions are in the way, your only choice may be cable.
Whatever you do, before you buy, do your research. Take the time to visit the various web pages of the satellite providers as well as the cable company. Do some comparison shopping and choose what you like best.
Answer
Here is a website that I used to compare. Its pretty objective and compares Satellite to cable as well as lists some providers for both services. http://www.dishtvreviews.com/
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