In January 1998, Intel, Microsoft, Compaq, and a number of large US telephone companies announced plans to develop technology to improve the data carrying capacity of the existing copper wire telephone infrastructure. Diminishing lines between old media and new media Radio stations broadcast over the Internet. Phone calls are made without a telephone. Voice messages can be delivered to an e-mail account. Faxes can be sent on-line.
TVs provide Internet access.
All of these things have happened and suggest that talk about a future of video on demand and unified media may not have been so far fetched after all. Already cable TV network companies in select areas are offering high speed Internet access through cable TV networks in addition to cable TV programming and telephone service through one digital connection. In 1998, digital TV sets and digital VCRs should be on the market and eventually replace their analog counterparts. Television, unlike computers, enjoys wider usership across the socio-economic spectrum. Integration of the more universal medium of TV into the more exclusive medium of the Internet, may be the ticket that helps brings the Internet into widespread societal usage.