Taipei Times: Can you tell us more about what benefits digital TV is bringing your customers and why it is important for Taiwan's viewing public?
David Dea: What is the benefit to consumers in the home? A higher-quality video signal, as well as a faster Internet service at much less expense to the customer. We're connecting 1,000 customers a week in our service areas because of the higher speed, and we sell that service at 50 percent of the cost of the same speed on Chunghwa Telecom Co (
The best way to describe it is the BSkyB services [offered in the UK]. [BSkyB owner Rupert] Murdoch has done a wonderful job of developing a new array of interactive television that is really just beginning, including the sports service that has the capability of being able to watch a sporting event and reach over and change cameras, do picture-in-picture, just flip the screen, and at the same time view some information about the sports player and the team on the screen. It gives the capability to personally involve the user with that medium, because it is interactive.
TT: Apart from sports, in what other areas do digital services enhance current cable services?
Dea: The next area you will see is going to be education. Services are now developing some absolutely wonderful interactivity for educational purposes -- full-motion video so it is entertaining, personal and at the same time offers the benefit of education, whether it is formal or informal. Science programming etcetera is all being developed now, and within the next two to three years we are going to see that really be deployed in the industry.
Digital gives the ability to have a library and then the customer can access that library for full-motion video. For example, if I am watching a program on Prague on an interactive travel channel and I am interested in the castle as there may be an art exhibition, while I'm watching the video I can punch up current events and see the art gallery, and then I can hit a button and it will reach back and pull out a video from the library and show me the exhibition. That is the real benefit -- the interactivity.
TT: What about the commercial side? Can I then buy a ticket?
Dea: Absolutely. It is multi-featured. You'll be able to make your plane reservations. You will see the convergence of what we know today as the Internet with the television set.
TT: Many areas in Taiwan still do not have digital services. What are the major barriers you in the industry face?
Dea: The major barrier is the lacking or lagging government regulation in Taiwan. There is a desire to treat cable television as a utility as opposed to a developing, new technology in the market. There is an attitude by the government that it is a consumer issue. Well, basic cable television might require a more strict regulatory environment, but when we start getting off into these new services then things should become optional to the customer and the industry should be allowed to go ahead and invest and deploy new technologies and services without every time having to go through not one, but two regulatory levels. First is the Government Information Office, and then the local government. Taipei, for example, in the review of just the limited digital service, told the cable operators that you have to sell these set-top boxes, but with every one you deploy you lose US$50, so operators said they're not going to deploy the boxes.
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