BT´s video on demand technology

1994 has seen much publicity for the “information superhighway”, or even the “global superhighway” or other combinations of similar highly technologically-sounding journalistic or political jargon. The reality is a far cry from the apparent claims, but none the less, it is an emerging area where large global players are starting to flex their muscles as the potential business could be very large, and the impact on society irreversible. The first major service on such a “super-highway” may well be video on demand, a term that often includes not only movies and past TV programmes but also transactional services such as shopping, banking, education, training and games, all fully on-demand, and all initially aimed squarely at the mass residential market, delivered over telecommunications networks. To that end, during 1994, BT ran a technology trial of video on demand in Suffolk for 60 employee customers and is now moving towards launching a market trial of various interactive multimedia services for perhaps 2500 paying customers in 1995. The paper looks at the major technical aspects of BT´s implementation of video on demand