Interactive digital TV at the forefront of EU agenda

By Matt Whipp

Posted on 22 Nov 2002 at 15:20

Today the EU welcomed the growth of interactive digital television. Erkki Liikanen, the Commissioner for Enterprise and the Information Society, highlighted the medium's leading role as technologies converge.

Speaking at an industry conference in Montpellier, Liikanen envisaged, 'A pan-European digital TV rollout offering interactive services [that] could transform the digital TV platform into a major delivery mechanism for Information Society services.'

The reason, he said, is that as broadband uptake becomes widespread along with data-enabled telecom networks and digital TV, we will see a 'de-coupling [of] content from networks... convergence allows the same content to be delivered over any network to any terminal.'

Liikanen talked of 'new services and applications using technologies synergistically - in a way that a single technology could not. An example is Digital TV with a UMTS [3G] return path. Broadcasting or multicasting could be combined with one-to-one communications.'

With televisions in 98 per cent of EU households, it is the medium most able to deliver online content to EU citizens. Trials in Belgium of set-top boxes with integrated broadband modems had proved very successful, he declared. He praised the BBC for its imaginative use of technology, for example, combining interactive broadcasts and online material during Wimbledon 2002, and its Walking with Beasts series.

To this end, the EU is encouraging open standards across member states to ensure interoperability between platforms national services. Liikanen warned that standards might be enforced if the goals were not met by July 2004. It will also create the High Level Spectrum Group to oversee how the broadcast spectrum is used across member states.

In the UK, the collapse of ITV Digital earlier this year put a dark cloud over digital television. But, the ITC's quick award of the licences to the BBC and its own speedy rollout of its Freeview service of some 30 free channels has seen renewed faith in the medium.

It was revealed yesterday that every government has been instructed to consider digital television as a key element in delivering its services.