ONDIGITAL TO LAUNCH INTERNET
03/08/2000
Interspace
(c) 2000 Phillips Business Information, Inc.
UK digital terrestrial player ONdigital says it will shortly directly challenge satellite and cable with its own high-speed Internet service. ONdigital's chief operating officer Simon Dore also said the company will introduce a second generation box "within a year". This box will be equipped with a built-in hard drive, "significantly upgraded modem" and other memory- based improvements.
Chief executive Stuart Prebble confirmed ONdigital's internet plans at the Financial Times New Media and Broadcasting conference this week, saying they would make Internet access "for virtually every household in Britain." Prebble said: "When Bill Gates said some years ago that he wanted to put a PC in every home he overlooked the fact that there was already a TV in every home, and in many homes two TVs." Prebble said that ONdigital would also provide five e-mail accounts per home to subscribers. ONdigital subscribers would be able to send and receive e-mails while still watching TV, he said.
ONdigital's plans were amplified by Dore who said ONdigital's business plans include delivering added-value services to a much wider audience than its core subscriber base, and that the company was examining "home server-type" functionality as part of its future box plans. "We will be bringing a hard-disc product to market, which needs to live alongside our basic TV proposition. What we cannot do is introduce a new box which suddenly appears on the market, with umpteen existing subscribers demanding an upgrade. We are very close to a final decision and believe we are alongside one of the quickest routes to market."
Dore said that while the second box will not happen this year, "there will still be lots of exciting stuff this side of Christmas." Dore confirmed that ONdigital is examining methods of supporting those potential subscribers who only need a basic box which will have Internet access, as well as funding a higher-specified premium box. "But we can't write cheques for the second generation box from Day One."
Dore also confirmed the company was in the "last stages of beta-testing Divicom 's compression equipment" which will lead to extra channels being added. "Better compression doesn't bring extra bandwidth means we can add an average of one extra channel per mux." Dore said ONdigital will also be boosting the amount of subscriber services available "including subtitles, audio description and signing" as part of improved bandwidth management techniques.
"Services we are planning to introduce in a year's time are not necessarily supportable at the moment," said Dore, who also spoke about the imminent introduction of a Canal Plus-developed PCM/CIA card-sized CA module, available free-of-charge for retro-fit to IDTVs. Dore said ONdigital has ordered 70,000 modules with a May launch slated. The module contains the MediaGuard CA and "some base MediaHighway software to cope with encryption and other services," said Dore. >TK |
