I wonder if Easynet could help Homechoice with their national expansion, or will it just be a competitor.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4016031.stm

http://www.ukonline.net/8000/

UK Online are part of Easynet, so I assume the coverage will be the same

http://www.samknows.com/broadband/ot...ue.php?type=en

Well, I think this is the only way forward for HomeChoice - the infrastructure is now there, all HC need to do is find a way of using it.

I don't think HC would ever be able to LLU nationally itself.

The infrastructure isn't there though - Easynet's infrastructure is there.

You need to get enough bandwidth from HomeChoice into each exchange - after all if you have 50 different channels being watched that's 125Mbps minimum into a single exchange that has to be maintained consistently.

The more subscribers the more the network needs to ramp up - and all this has to be provided from HomeChoice's own servers which need to scale with the service.

They're doing the right thing growing their own network - it's much more complicated than a relatively simple internet connectivity offering.

You are right. I hear that they are now expanding their network to double the size in London over the next 3 or 4 months.

You seem to be the man in the know M_at.

My problem is that if in a year or so You could pick up a cheap Windows Media Center with twin freeview recorder or maybe an anologue version for satellite giving you access to 30 plus TV channels.

Nearly everyone in the UK will have the option of a superfast broadband connection at 8 Mb/sec at a lower than they are now.

And with Media Centers Online Spotlight You could access 1000+ movies on demand, Music Videos (as with Music Bigrade's 6000 strong library @ 1000 Kb/sec), access to 1 million records with Napster, and probably loads more services.

Hey Presto, You have Homechoice.

This is *wildly* optimistic. If you look at UK Online's list of exchanges served it's just a smattering here and there. Coverage is far from comprehensive and is likely to remain that way for a while, considering the substantial capital investment required for each exchange they wish to serve.

Look at how long it took BT to get most of the country wired for just 512Kbps. There comes a point at which it doesn't make economic sense to put kit into an exchange that serves only a small population, as you will not recoup your investment. Because of this, I suspect we'll only see the likes of UK Online offered only in more densely-populated areas for some time to come.

Not quite - you have a collection of applications which don't gel, are difficult to control, are user unfriendly for granny and kids, don't offer great parental controls and doesn't sit nicely alongside my bedroom TV set.

I still believe that there will always be a market for standalone TV offerings as I really don't want a bulk PC in my TV.

You only havce to look at all the Media Centers at PC World and theirs a great looking one being developed by Tranquil PC and other great designs by Alienware & Hush Technologies.

With Online Spotlight they have an easy to use interface to access all Your online Media via Your Remote Control.

A list of services available are

Napster
Music Brigade
AOL Music on Demand
MSN Music Club
CinemaNow
MovieLink (US Only)
Wild Games
ESPN Motion
Live 365
MusicMatch
MSN TV Today
Reuters News

and here's a Video showing it all at work

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/w...ceMix_300k.asx

All, with the possible exception of Napster, crap.

I have a Media Center (2005) PC connected to my television and it's great for what I use it for, but the online offerings right now (especially in the UK) are a waste of time. Don't buy one for that.

It also doesn't work particularly well with HomeChoice. This is HomeChoice's fault (the STB doesn't play very nicely) and not MCE's, but it was still enough for me to switch the PC back to Freeview.

Your right about the content not being their quite yet. I think it will get better with time.

Music Brigade is Superb though. 6000 Videos streaming @ 1000 Kb/sec. Although about 1000 of those Videos are by Swedish Artists.

You can access online content with Internet Explorer or Real Player. For Example:

Sky Sports Broadband (I got for £20 for the year)
UEFA Action Pass (Which is good value)
Discovery Broadband
Channel 4 Broadband
Vidzone
Video TV
MTV Live (NTL Broadband Plus only)
High TV (free)
Revs TV (free)