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BT unwraps its Christmas crackers

Written by Stephen Ebert
Tuesday, 07 August 2007
With all the Christmas shows demos on at the moment, it was BT’s turn to showcase its latest range of services and products they hope will keep us entertained this winter. From TV on demand, mobile services, storage, baby monitors and virtual reality, it was all happening at BT’s latest event high atop the BT Tower. Once our ears un-popped themselves on the way up to the BT Tower we were greeted by a wintry wonderland complete with festive tunes, mince pies, trees and fake snow. But there was also plenty of kit and here are just some of the offerings of note. Headlining BT’s services was the BT Vision television on demand service. It promises over 40 Freeview channels and full freedom over what extras viewers are able to watch. No compulsory monthly subscription means you pay for what you watch. The service features a huge range of movies, kids shows music videos and films, as well as sports including Premier League Football from Setanta. A set-top box is needed but comes free if you stump up the £60 installation charge and £30 connection fee, though it can be self-installed meaning only the connection fee needs to be paid. Subscription packages start from £4 per month or you can subscribe to the full package for £14 per month. It wasn’t all couch potatoes though. There was also the new mobile service –BT Fusion. Using the wonder of Wi-Fi BT was keen to let us know that this new generation of mobile service would provide us with great value. Using a wireless connection, calls on a pre-pay mobile service are routed over BT Total Broadband. Callers will be able to take advantage of such benefits as making a four-minute call for the price of a one-minute call as long as you spend more than £5 a month. That extends outside the home, with more than 2,000 BT Openzone hotspots backing the Fusion service. Keeping with the phone theme – this is BT after all – was the Domus home phone. Billed as ‘The ultimate in home phone technology’ it features, according to the BT suits taking a deep breath: enhanced audio meaning crisper calls and sound quality; an integrated answering machine; 255 name and number directory; SIM card reader; polyphonic and monophonic ring-tones; and manual or predictive text messaging. Other phone products included the Edge 1000 VoIP DECT phone, which allows you to make calls over the internet using BT Broadband Talk without having to turn on your PC. Kicking off a cosy family theme was the BT Digital Vault. The online storage system for files was billed as the place to store all your precious memories safely, instead of having them all on Facebook on your virus-prone computer. Of course Facebook or Flickr are is still the place to upload photos for many but BT was keen to stress how easily files can be shared among family and friends in a safe environment. The basic package includes 1GB of storage and is free for everyone. The next package is 5GB and is free for BT Broadband customers. The biggest package comes in at 20 GB of storage and will cost £4.99 a month for all. Backing up the family home theme was the BT Baby Monitor 150 allowing you to hear your infants squeals in crisp high-definition crystal clear sound. Taking things a little further afield – into a whole other virtual world – was the demonstration of a BT phone, text and messaging service that runs within Second Life. BT phone boxes (which have already been recreated by some users in SL but “won’t do the things our phone boxes can do”) were on show demonstrating real world communication to and from the virtual world. That included a demo of ordering a pizza based on your real-life location but paying in Linden dollars. Messages from Second Life can also be sent straight to a mobile phone and vice versa, while other messenger clients such as Google talk can be built into your comms centre. For more information on some of BT’s services and products check out the BT Shop.

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