A shocking revelation from BT that their BT Vision product, due to be launched this year, but delayed until next year, will be nothing more than a Freeview box with video on demand over broadband service.
Considering that Freeview is, er, free, and can be bought for a £30 outlay and that there are plenty of competing products for broadband, this is looking more and more like a commoditised 'three play plus video' strategy.
I had hoped to be able to get the Freeview channels over broadband at my home in Wales (where digital terrestrial signals don't work despite my having to pay a TV Licence to the BBC), but no such luck. Apparently, BT's network isn't good enough to cope with either unicasting or multicasting. A damning revelation considering that Narrowstep has been running unicast services at up to 2Mbps for both the UK's largest cable company and largest commercial broadcaster for many years now - largely on the BT network.
There are many rumours that BT may acquire ITV; at this rate two plus two would make three.
Considering that Freeview is, er, free, and can be bought for a £30 outlay and that there are plenty of competing products for broadband, this is looking more and more like a commoditised 'three play plus video' strategy.
I had hoped to be able to get the Freeview channels over broadband at my home in Wales (where digital terrestrial signals don't work despite my having to pay a TV Licence to the BBC), but no such luck. Apparently, BT's network isn't good enough to cope with either unicasting or multicasting. A damning revelation considering that Narrowstep has been running unicast services at up to 2Mbps for both the UK's largest cable company and largest commercial broadcaster for many years now - largely on the BT network.
There are many rumours that BT may acquire ITV; at this rate two plus two would make three.
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