31 October 2000
The United Kingdom leads the world with interactive TV
The United Kingdom continues to lead the world in implementing interactive TV (iTV) with 3.9 million households expected to access services by yearend 2000, according to IDC. Successful mass-market deployment has attracted the interest of a global industry that has witnessed several fruitless efforts in the past to deliver interactive applications through the TV. (see press release)
26 October 2000
Fiber-to-the home approaches cost parity with copper
The cost of deploying fiber-to-the home is approaching that of deploying copper, said Verizon's Rick Hofman and Marconi's John Gibbs at KMI's 23rd Annual Conference of Fiberoptics Markets in Newport.
Rick Hoffman, Director of Transmission and Future Technology at Verizon Communications, said that key components enabling Verizon to deploy fiber-to-the-home include aerial fusion splicing, self-supporting fiber cable and fiber drops, lower fiber cable prices, and Bell Atlantic's PON (passive optical network) architecture of one fiber.
John Gibbs, Director of Access Systems Product Marketing for Marconi, presented a cost comparison for a three-year buildout of a new residential housing development. He projected fiber-to-the-home costs to be $1,400 per home in year one, and $1,200 per home in years two and three. (see press release)
23 October 2000
Launch of SmashedAtom aims to lead the Global Interactive TV Market
Telewest, the digital media and telecoms group, has formed a new company with Atomic Tangerine, the global venture consultancy, to capitalise on the growing market for interactive TV services.
The joint venture harnesses the skills and experience of Flextech Interactive, a division of Telewest, to the technological innovation of Atomic Tangerine, which is an offshoot of SRI (Stanford Research Institute). SRI and its sister company, Sarnoff, were responsible for the invention of colour TV and the computer mouse, and played a significant role in the creation of the Internet.
The new company, SmashedAtom, will offer services to television channels, advertisers, retailers and government departments wanting to profit or benefit from interactive TV. It will work for clients on commercial and regulatory strategy, concept development, TV graphic design, software development and will offer full project management. SmashedAtom’s unique technologies will allow them to build interactive TV services that work simultaneously on digital satellite, digital cable and digital terrestrial television. (see press release)17 October 2000
ONdigital doubles its subscribers over the last year
ONdigital, the world-leading interactive digital TV service has announced that it has 896,000 customers signed up as at 16 October 2000. The figure for the quarter ended 30 September 2000 was 878,000, more than double the figure of 411,000 at the same period in 1999. In the first two weeks after launch, ONnet, ONdigital's full Internet service, signed up 20,000 customers. (see press release)
13 October 2000
Accessing the Internet via TV
Two UK-based companies, Powerchannel and Freebox, are accepting applications for a free set-top box that will let people surf the net via their TV according to a recent article. (see article)
11 October 2000
28 per cent of UK homes are now connected to the Internet and 21 per cent have digital TV
Home access to the Internet and take up of digital TV services continues to grow at a rapid rate, according to latest research published by Oftel.
- Seven million UK homes (28 per cent) are now connected to the Internet, with almost one million homes going online in the three months to August
- Over one and half million domestic subscribers are now using an unmetered package to access the Internet.
- The number of consumers with digital TV has risen by 10 per cent in the last three months to a total of 5.25 million homes (21 per cent).
- 10 per cent of homes with digital TV use it to access the Internet, and 15 per cent to use e-mail.
Oftel’s research follows on from latest figures from the OECD which shows that the UK is the cheapest country in Europe for unmetered off-peak access, and remains among the cheapest for metered off-peak access. (see press release)
The studies "Consumers' use of Internet: Summary of Oftel residential survey August 2000" and "Consumers' use of digital TV" is available on Oftel's website.
Interactive TV in Central EuropeUnited Pan-Europe Communications (UPC), the largest broadband network provider in Europe, said it will deploy OpenTV's interactive television platform in Poland, Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic during 2001. (see article)
6 October 2000
NTL adopts Liberate's TV platform software
NTL has become the fourth digital television provider to choose Liberate's TV platform software for its enhanced TV services, in what is seen as a further blow to Microsoft. (see press release) (see article)
5 October 2000
Full-length feature films delivered to Pocket PC handhelds.
Kanakaris Wireless has announced what it calls the first delivery of full-length feature films to a variety of platforms, including Pocket PC handhelds. (see article)
Broadserve, Inc. and FutureTV to bring Broadband Applications to Set-Top-Boxes
FutureTV has announceed that it has entered into a Letter of Intent with Broadserve, the leading broadband Applications Service Enabler and Provider. The parties will work together to integrate elements of Broadserve's broadband communications platform into FutureTV's set-top box system. Such elements include, but are not limited to, Voice-Over-IP, Video Conferencing and Video Mail. (see press release)
3 October 2000
IDC Sees an Interactive TV Revolution
Massive improvements to the infrastructure for TV-centric information appliances over the past few years and lower costs per home for interactive service deployment will foster an interactive TV revolution. IDC forecasts U.S. NetTV unit activations will increase tenfold, from about 1 million in 1999 to more than 10 million in 2004. (see press release)
Previous News :-
Last updated 30 April 2004
