~terry
Thu, Sep 11, 1997 (22:09)
seed
New Cable TV Internet Access Announced
A consortium of major players is putting together an alternative to
Microsoft's Web-TV plans. Worldgate Communications backers include
several cable operators and ad agencies, Motorola, Citicorp, Scientific-
Atlanta, Nextlevel Systems (General Instrument) and maybe @Home. Their
target is the 65% of US households with cable TV (only 40% have PCs, and
less than half of them do online). The basic idea is to provide Web
access over TV using the vertical blanking interval, with no computing
at the customer's site; they would need only a special remote control,
and a modified cable converter box (and yes, a TV); a wireless keyboard
is optional. The price would be about $12/month and provide about 192
kilobits per second bandwidth. By contrast, Microsoft's plan is said to
require a specialized $200 set-top device, cost $20 a month, and be more
complex to operate. Worldgate's CEO Hal Krisbergh suggests the idea of
doing the computing back at the cable company simplifies the deployment,
though he acknowledges it will provide the service provider with a lot
of data on browsing habits of individual households and raise major
privacy questions.
web conference
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