Backchannelmedia

Sunday Business

By Tony Glover, The Business, London

Sep. 25--UK television viewers will soon be able to have their own individual channel as one of a range of interactive television services planned by BT.

A senior source at BT said the telecoms giant had begun evaluating internet television applications that will transform the nation's viewing habits.

BT is upgrading its network to enable it to stream interactive television into customers' homes over a two-way high-speed broadband internet connection providing services designed to appeal to ordinary television viewers as much as to computer buffs.

One of the services BT will be considering is an application developed by French telecoms equipment maker Alcatel, called My Own TV.

This will enable every household to create its own channel containing content such as home movies and photo collections. Friends and relatives will be to access the channel on their television sets via the remote in the same way they would access a regular television channel.

According to Alcatel, the service would also enable small interest groups such as local football clubs or small towns to have their own television channels. These could even be subsidised by sponsorship or related product advertising.

Another service to be considered by BT is one allowing viewers to use the internet to create a virtual audience of friends or family while watching a sporting event, movie or favourite television show.

Alcatel believes that the ability to share television programmes in this way will be one of the big attractions of internet television. It has produced a product called Amigo TV, which BT says it will be assessing along with rival products from other suppliers.

Amigo TV allows viewers to invite people watching television in other locations to enjoy a specific programme with them. When they get home and switch on the television, the invitation appears in a small box on the screen. The person sending the invitation is identified by a small icon.

According to Alcatel, the 12-25 age group at which the service is initially aimed were reluctant to use digital photos of themselves and preferred to compose cartoon icons. By clicking on the invitation, the viewer can see the icons of the other people who have been invited to watch the show.

While watching the show the selected audience members can send text messages to one another's screens using a keypad on their remote control handsets. Alcatel is also developing handsets with a microphone that will enable the virtual audience to make live voice comments about the show that will be heard on one another's television sets.

They would also be able to hear one another's reaction in the form of laughter. This application is born of the combination of television and computer networking technology that was predicted some months ago by Microsoft chief executive Steven Ballmer.

Next year, service providers such as BT and Cable & Wireless internet services provider Bulldog are expected to start competing with one another to provide interactive television services.

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