http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/09...oice_wakes_up/

Highlights:
[list][*]HomeChoice are provisioning 4.5Mbps ADSL lines. A quote from the CEO implies that the video stream is under 2Mbps. (It certainly can't be much more than that if the 4.5Mbps figure is correct.)[*]HomeChoice will switch to ADSL2+ (a newer ADSL technology that allows up to twice the line speed of current ADSL) next year. They are proceeding cautiously on this front, as the choice of ADSL2+ equipment is critical to their long-term plans.[*]They will start offering CPS telephone service later this year, with plans to offer full VoIP phone lines after implementing ADSL2+. (They want to offer a "primary" phone line, and believe VoIP technology is not yet suitable for such use.)[*]They are "almost ready" to roll out MPEG-4, but they don't expect it to provide a big immediate improvement in picture quality. Rather, they think it will allow bandwidth requirements to steadily decrease with time as the quality of codec implementation improves.[*]HomeChoice has "full UK rights" to most of its VOD content, so it might branch into selling movie downloads.[/list]

hmm thats interesting as i have the sky sports and had a few problems with it at first (still not a great picture) and i was told that the sky broadcast was using about 4 meg of the line so was the ceo talking about the on demand stuff only if so does that mean the box changes how much bandwidth it gets when you change between the programmes

interesting article, i am getting homechoice installed the week after next so will be interested to see how it goes, accept that this is still in the early stages and mpg4 plus other changes will constantly be improving the service, also subscribing to the sky sports package, will be quite annoyed if the picture is very good after paying £24 a month for it.

Really?

Seriously though, I don't personally subscribe to the Sky Sports package, but picture quality on footy highlights programmes etc on other channels is absolutely fine.

oops, meant bad, but guessing you know that.

Yes, 4.5Mbps is lower than previous speculation here - but it also makes sense. 6Mbps is about as fast as current ADSL technology gets, and it can only be done to a limited distance from the exchange. If HomeChoice use 4.5Mbps this extends their range and thus their possible customer base.

I wonder if perhaps they use 4.5Mbps lines for standard service and 6Mbps lines for 2Mbps broadband customers. This would mean that 2Mbps service becomes unavailable beyond a certain line length. I don't know whether this is the case - might be worth asking.