Abstract :
Open Interactive was created by its shareholders, BSkyB, BT, HSBC and MEI to deliver interactive television. That is, interactivity which is entertaining, informative and easy to use-just like television. Of course that implies that the service will be rich, offering shopping, banking, information services, games and e-mail under the brand name Open. However interactivity as envisaged by Open implies much more than merely displaying Web pages on television, imposing technical requirements on a number of key components of the system, principally the digital set top box and a delivery mechanism which mixes high bandwidth digital satellite transmission with on-line data delivered by the telephone network
