Intel's CPU is finally in a settop box...........................
technologypost.com
Tuesday, March 30, 1999
BUSINESS
Global venture to take on interactive TV rival
ERIC LAI
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Pacific Convergence Corp (PCC), the digital multimedia joint venture between Richard Li's Pacific Century Group and chip-maker Intel Corp, says the satellite-based interactive Internet and television broadcasting service it is developing will be able to service up to 3.5 billion subscribers and could be launched as early as July.
PCC's up-to-now top-secret service will bring PC-based interactivity through a television screen. Subscribers will be able to watch video programmes such as news and movies while downloading Web pages at a high speed.
It will be the most ambitious example of a digital convergence service in the world. Though similar to PC-TV, the recently announced joint venture between Hongkong Telecom and Bill Gates' Microsoft, which will deliver Web pages and video programmes through optical fibre to PC screens, PCC's service will probably use a combination of satellite broadcast, huge server computers to store content in each country and coaxial lines used by cable TV operators.
The service also bests PC-TV in scope. PCC says it will reach a potential audience of billions in Asia, the Middle East and Eastern Europe, while PC-TV is aimed at Hong Kong's 6.5 million residents.
Formed in March last year, PCC is 60 per cent owned by Pacific Century and 40 per cent by Intel. It is investing US$250 million on research and developing content for the service. That consists of eight special-interest portals, including weather, sport, personal finance, technology, agriculture, movies and education. Content is being developed in English, Japanese and Chinese.
Most television broadcasters do not own their content, preferring to license it from outside sources. But PCC wants to build its own interactive content and own the distribution platform.
One recent demonstration showed a news broadcast being read during which clickable hot links to Web pages appeared as the newsreader mentioned the company or subject.
With subscription fees to consumers low to non-existent, PCC's service will make money through advertising and selling products on-line, chiefly those it could also deliver on-line.
For instance, rather than licensing TV programmes for free broadcast, the service will show advertisements for movies or sports matches on the television interface, similar to Web-site advertising banners. Like video-on-demand systems such as iTV, users would need to pay to download and watch the programme.
To protect against illegal copying or piracy, broadcast television movies could be encoded with special instructions to prevent them from being copied or viewed more than a set number of times.
Its education channel could also offer college courses and degrees on-line. It would also offer financial information, video games and broadband Internet access of more than one Mbps.
PCC is also considering offering lucrative services such as international voice telephony or video-conferencing. However, most governments in Asia, including Hong Kong's, do not yet allow companies to offer telephone services through coaxial cable.
To offer the service, cable TV operators in each market will need to upgrade their analogue networks to digital. PCC says the upgrade, which differs from that of Star Television, will cost companies as little as $4 per household.
Consumers will need to buy a $300 "set-top PC" equipped with an Intel processor, most likely through their local operator. Current prototypes run a Pentium MMX 266 MHz chip, though future versions will run Intel's low-cost Celeron processor.
No timetable has been set for the launch of the service. But by using ApStar and AsiaSat satellites, the service could be broadcast as soon as July, one official said. PCC plans to launch its own satellites in three to four years.
For Intel, which has seen chip sales slow in recent months, the new service could provide a key new market for its processors.
Mr Li, chairman of parent company Pacific Century, said the service represented the next logical step after Star TV, which he founded in 1990 when he was 23 years old.
PCC has about 100 employees creating and building content for the service. With some offices in the $13 billion Cyberport project slated to be completed by the end of 2001, PCC plans to move its headquarters there.
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