October 27, 2005 | posted by Michael Baxter in Uncategorized |

Last week BSkyB thought it served an ace. First it announced a £1bn war chest for funding its move into telephony, to be partially spent on local loop unbundling - effectively removing BT’s infrastructure from its telecom offering. Then it announced its purchase of Easynet.

But yesterday, BT returned the serve, with a corking half volley into the far corner of BSkyB’s court.

BT has teamed up with Royal Philips Electronics to offer a next generation TV service in the latter half of next year.

The Service, which will run in conjunction with Freeview, will offer 30 channels of TV from the Freeview box, a seven day video catch up, with TV programmes shown over the previous seven days downloadable from the Internet, and what BT describes as an “extensive” video on demand library, again available from the net.

Customers will need the BT 2 megabit broadband service to enjoy the service.

The Set Top Box which will offer these services is to be supplied by Philips, and will include a personal video recorder (PVR) capable of storing up to 80 hours of programming and be capable of delivering High Definition content.

The BT service will not include any monthly subscription charges- instead there will be an element of pay per view.

Ian Livingston, chief executive BT Retail, said “Our services will be a world first and will place power in the hands of the viewer. No longer will BT customers be reliant on TV schedules. From next year, they will be able to watch what they like when they like. This is all about giving our customers choice, convenience and control.

“We see next generation TV as a vital element of our vision for home entertainment. In an increasingly converged world, BT customers will be able to benefit from the combination of television, communications and the internet. For example, football fans across the country will be able to chat using video telephony while watching a match. Our catch-up TV offering will also allow people to watch programmes they may have missed but wanted to see.”

The BT service will employ the Microsoft TV IPTV Edition software platform.