Originally published March 1 2005
Telephone companies rush to launch IPTV systems
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
Three telephone companies rushing to launching IPTV systems. IPTV allows television programs to be broadcast over an internet connection. It breaks up the signal into bits and the set top receiver in your home will request for the specific channel that you need. This is unlike digital cable or conventional analog signals where the signals carry all the channels at one go, a process that can eat up a lot of bandwidth.
Internet Protocol, the language of most online communications, was supposed to have revolutionized the way we watch television by now, enabling a wide range of multimedia bells and whistles: from multiple camera angles to on-screen Web searches while viewing Gilligan's Island to see which actors are still living.
But just as the tech bubble's promise of "IP" telephone service over an Internet connection is only now becoming a widespread reality, IPTV finally appears to be on the verge of entering the U.S. mainstream.
Not the cable TV establishment - which questions the technology and the demand for so much interactivity - but rather three Bell telephone companies are taking IPTV off the drawing board in the United States, much as telecom players in Asia and Europe have led the way abroad.
The extent of the Bells' plans vary considerably, but perhaps a dozen markets will see some form of IPTV starting later this year, and millions of homes might have the option by the end of 2006.
While BellSouth Corp. has expressed doubt about whether a cable rollout makes financial sense, the company sees enough potential to try IPTV technology in undisclosed markets.
IPTV converts a television signal into small packets of computer data like any other form of online traffic such as e-mail, a Web page or the Internet phone service known as VoIP, or Voice over Internet Protocol - making it easier to integrate the various services on a TV screen.
Using the home's high-speed Internet connection in both directions, a channel selection is transmitted from the set-top box to a local center, which sends back only the packets of video and audio for the desired channel.
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