Early Broadband Service Trials: The Cambridge iTV trial
1994-96. ATM Ltd (later renamed Virata Inc) and Online Media, Cambridge UK.
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Link to a Radio Broadcast about the: Home Shopping Services. Architecture of the iTV trialThe Cambridge Digital Interactive Television Trial started in September 1994, with ten users connected in the first phase. ATM networking technology is employed throughout the system, with two-way digital data being carried alongside cable TV signals over fibre optic links. In phase two, begun in March 1995, the network and the content server facilities were substantially enhanced, and the number of user sites (homes, schools and businesses) was increased: by January 1996 it approached one hundred. T1/E1 G.80x ATM Line Card NIC
 These cards were used in the set-top boxes of the Cambridge Interactive Television Trial (iTV Trial). Nearly 100 such were installed in homes and schools in Cambridge. We used an E1 baseband signal running on the CATV feeder coax from the street cabinet to each home. The analog CATV occupied the upper frequencies as usual. I designed this card, code named LUCY, using two Xilinx devices because each device had two global clock networks and I needed a total of four clock domains. The FPGA designs for the NIC were the first real use of my CSYN Verilog compiler. This was probably a world first, being both the first academic and first commercial instance of programming an FPGA using RTL. The Wild Vision version of the Line Card NIC was exactly the same as my design except they used a new PCB layout for their production run. Wild Vision NIC. |
UK companies are at the forefront of world efforts to bring the communications revolution to the home. The author describes a comprehensive ATM-based trial currently running in the UK. The first phase of the trial was set up to solve the technical issues involved in setting up and operating a low cost, fully switched ATM-end-to-end infrastructure capable of delivering a wide range of information types, up to and including video. It also explored the basic logistics of service provision, including for example, a regularly updated news-on-demand service. The second phase extends the number of users and implements some cost reductions in the technology employed, but also focuses on the development of services. For this expansion of the trial an environment has been created (the 'Service Nursery') for development and trialling of the new generation of multimedia services that will make the superhighway a commercial reality.