Interactive Video-Services for the Residential Customer

The Information Highway is the basic term for a wide range of services in different areas of telecommunications, computing and entertainment. These services include high-speed data transfer over ATM (Asynchronous Transfer Mode) networks or other data services, such as Switched Multimegabit Data Services (SMDS) via Distributed Queue Dual Bus (DQDB)-networks. Presently booming online-services are further examples for services attracting public interest now. The success of the Internet — especially since introduction of convenient user interfaces like the World Wide Web — shifts online-services also in the discussion of the Information Highway. Wide introduction of ISDN offers digital connections not only for business users and fiber in the loop as well as cable TV (CATV) networks enable private users to use broadband services. The PC offers multimedia today and a complete generation has been grown up with this technology.