TeleCruz partners with EarthLink to provide Internet access for interactive TV
TeleCruz-enabled televisions featuring EarthLink Internet access will offer consumers easy access to interactive TV services such as e-mail, chat, Internet browsing and shopping via the convenience of their televisions. The first interactive televisions with EarthLink Internet service are expected to be available from Panasonic in the second half of 2001.
"EarthLink has a worldwide base of 4.7 million subscribers," according to chairman and CEO Kris Narayan. "This agreement opens a new customer channel for EarthLink and allows TeleCruz to bring its message of easy and affordable interactivity to a growing global market."
"The TeleCruz platform offers consumers -- including those who may not have a computer -- an innovative, affordable and easy way to access the Internet through their television," said Lance Weatherby, executive vice president of the ISP's "EarthLink Everywhere" initiative. "This new alternative to the personal computer extends our ability to offer our award-winning Internet access to a broad range of consumers."
TeleCruz enables a wide variety of interactive television services at a low cost by providing an open, patented technology platform for integration inside the television. The company's open-platform, system-on-a-chip architecture is capable of supporting interactive capabilities being created by advertisers, content creators and broadcasters alike. TeleCruz works with television manufacturers as well as ISPs and interactive content providers, including AT&T, Yack.com and Spiderdance, to bring the benefits of interactive television to average television viewers everywhere.
TeleCruz-enabled TV sets allow consumers to connect to the Internet without a computer or set-top box via an embedded modem, chip-set, and interactive software package contained within the television itself. After logging on for the first time and navigating a quick online sign-up process, new EarthLink subscribers can surf the Web, send email, and enjoy enhanced programming through the simple click of a remote or wireless keyboard. Existing EarthLink subscribers are able to enjoy the device immediately by logging on with their EarthLink username and password at no additional charge to their current Internet service contract.
According to Jupiter Communications, interactive television will reach 27 percent of all U.S. households by 2004 or an estimated 29.4 million households. Additionally, Forrester Research predicts interactive services could generate as much as $7 billion in ecommerce revenues by 2004. Through its wide assortment of alliances, TeleCruz is poised to drive the growth of this emerging industry and create a ready-made worldwide mass market for interactive televisions and related services.