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Jim Barthold
Bresnan Communications Co. Ltd. has signed a multi-year agreement to launch WorldGate Communications Inc.'s Internet-over-TV service to more than 100,000 selected subscriber homes beginning this summer.
The launch will mark WorldGate's first use of digital set-tops as Internet portals.
"The key, of course, is that it's 27 megabits (per second), which is two-and-a-half times faster than a broadband modem," said Hal Krisbergh, WorldGate's chairman-CEO.
Bresnan will use both General Instrument Corp.'s digital set-tops and cable modems to subscribers Internet access via either the TV or the PC, or both.
"We've designed our system to be TV-centric," Krisbergh said. "You wouldn't do desktop computing, word processing and spreadsheets on a TV set, so it's not competing with the broadband modems that are used on a desktop platform for those kinds of educational, academic, business reasons," Krisbergh said.
Instead, the WorldGate link provides Web access and the ability to "hyperlink."
"Even a high-end PC user, at some point during the day, is going to wind up in front of the TV set. When he does, if somebody says to him 'If you'd like to get more information about Kosovo or Littleton or whatever,' you can immediately go to the Web site at the push of a button," Krisbergh said.
The digital capability, he said, brings a "whole new dimension" to WorldGate's service, that, when offered over analog, provides about 128 kilobits per second (Kbps) speed.
"The key to this is full Internet access, full e-mail, Java, JavaScript, the whole bit," he pointed out, noting that the system does not require high-end "OpenCable-type" DCT-5000 digital set-tops.
"Everyone assumed that a digital set-top, especially the current ones that are out there, are pretty dumb boxes, can't do anything," Krisbergh pointed out. "This really turns the box into a very powerful platform. We like to say that the horsepower in this box is less than one-half of one percent of the power of a PC. Our horsepower is in the headend."
Bresnan has about 650,000 customers in Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska and Wisconsin, and an affiliated company, Bresnan Communications Poland, where the company has actively pursued converged voice, video and data services. It also has leased access to PCS provider WirelessNorth Ltd. for wireless telephone services using portions of the cable plant spectrum.
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