Over the last decade, people have talked about convergence -- that is, bringing TV, digital media and the Internet together in one box -- as the "next big thing." SBC is betting that it's finally ready for prime time:
SBC Communications Inc. is merging home entertainment and digital content through the television set-top box. The San Antonio, Texas-based telecommunications provider on Monday announced a joint venture with equipment maker 2Wire Inc. to deliver a new home entertainment service and set-top box by the middle of the year. It will be available to customers using both its SBC | Dish Network satellite TV service and its SBC Yahoo DSL service. The new service will center on a set-top box that integrates satellite television, digital video recording, video on demand and Web content such as Yahoo's photo-sharing and LaunchCast music services, SBC announced.
If this works, it will be very cool. Several years ago, Microsoft introduced WebTV, which allowed users to surf the web on their televisions. The problem was that traditional tube TVs don't have high enough resolution to display small text clearly. With the growing popularity of high-definition digital TV sets, that problem is fading quickly.
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