Tru2way Continues to Gain Momentum
Posted Thu, 16 Apr 2009 14:24:23 EDT by Jason Blackwell
Over the past few weeks, there have been a number of announcements from cable operators, middleware developers, and silicon vendors. While cable companies have been promising interactive TV for a long time, it seems that this time it is for real. The latest announcements this week give more insight to the rollout of tru2way by Cox Communications, scheduled for this summer.
A large number of tru2way-enabled set-top boxes have already been deployed, and the largest MSOs in the US have updated a significant percentage of their networks to support tru2way. This flurry of activity follows the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) last year by a number of CE manufacturers, cable operators, and silicon vendors. With this MOU, the cable operators pledged to make a concerted effort and hit specific targets for set-top deployments by the middle of 2009. Based on the number of set-tops already deployed by MSOs like Time Warner and Bright House Networks, they are well on their way to meeting these goals.
I believe that tru2way will finally get interactive TV rolling in a meaningful way. The cable operators face serious competition from the likes of Verizon FiOS and AT&T U-Verse. They must offer a service with similar feature sets, and if possible, go beyond what the competitors can offer. Tru2way is the technology that can achieve these objectives and bring the cable TV service offering into the 21st century.