Yes, all these investments by other companies are not a "seal of approval". These equity partners are just looking at the big picture, which is, how to best get digital TV to the consumer at the shortest amount of time and profit from theis convergence. IMO there is no animosity posed to one company having many fingers in the cookie jar....its an all for one kind of thing.
Re: Comcast deal, if you look previous the ATHM deal, you will see where WGAT was in early trials with Comcast.
Five MSOs To Begin Testing WorldGate's TVOL Service in January
By Jim Barthold
Five MSOs will begin trials of WorldGate Communications' TV On-Line (TVOL) service in January, according to the Trevose, Pa.-based company.
TVOL lets cable subscribers access the Internet with an addressable set-top box and their television sets.
Comcast Cable Communications Inc., Cablevision Systems Corp., Adelphia Communications Corp., Charter Communications and TeleWest Communications Scotland have all agreed to participate in the tests, according to Hal Krisbergh, chairman-CEO of WorldGate. The initial trial will consist of 50 to 150 homes.
"We want to give the industry a very pervasive look at the technology," Krisbergh said, adding, "there's a lot of excitement in Europe."
Also, WorldGate plans to have a full end-to-end system operating at the Western Cable Show in Anaheim, Calif., Dec. 11-13, according to Krisbergh.
"Fundamentally, our statement is we do e-mail, we do Web access. You can access the entire Web and do all the surfing on the Web," Krisbergh said. WorldGate also promises subscribers "hyperlinking," the ability to chase advertisers' URLs into their World Wide Web sites via a push of a button.
The January tests will use advanced analog set-tops from General Instrument Corp. and Scientific-Atlanta Inc., Krisbergh said. The set-tops that can receive data at 100 kilobits per second use a telephone return line. WorldGate also sells a wireless remote keyboard for a nominal fee. A Korean manufacturer will make the keyboards, Krisbergh said.
Although TVOL is faster than telephone modems, it's nowhere near the speed of cable modems, which is fine with Krisbergh.
"Some people have already made the investment of broadband modem server technology," he said. "We'll be able to ride on that. Some people will be putting us in first and will be able to migrate easily to broadband modem technology so you can do both."
Krisbergh emphasized that TVOL, which retails for $4.95 a month, is only a World Wide Web access provider. Unlike services such as Road Runner, @Home Network, Jones Internet Channel and Highway1 that provide their own sources of content, TVOL rides strictly on the Internet.
"We're not content providers," Krisbergh said. "We're not going against any of them. We're not trying to connect to PCs ... The nice thing about the Internet is that fundamentally it is free."
He didn't dismiss the idea that some subscribers might use TVOL's increased speed for work-at-home applications, but noted that that's not WorldGate's emphasis.
"Our whole story is no PC," he said. "Internet access for the masses. That's a nice simple story. Could it do other things? Certainly. And could it be used for other things? Sure.
"On the other hand, it's not going to compete with broadband modems because we are a much slower data rate. It may compete with telephone modems because they're slow."
(October 21, 1996)
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