Nevertheless, there are important lessons to learn out of the Full Service Network trial, according to its the Director-News, Peter M. Zollman:

"The Full Service Network was sleek, fast and gorgeous. It was a flagship for its owners. But it was not commercially viable. And just as pundits once predicted that the supersonic transport would be the only way to travel, many experts believe that some day everyone will watch television the way FSN subscribers watched television".

During the same time, other companies also were investing in Interactive Television projects, and unfortunately its fate was the same. Even Disney began to develop its own project on this new media industry, known as Americast, which was financed by four big banking institutions.

Microsoft also became interested in the subject. Already in 1993, Bill Gates referred to Interactive Television, as points out James Wallace in his article "the wackiest race in the world". For Wallace, Bill Gates knew that the software desktop revenue source would one day dry out, and he believed that the future of Microsoft consisted in the development of interactive television software. Still, Bill Gates didn’t mention the word Internet in his speeches.

That same year, Bill Gates would invest millions of dollars in Interactive Television research and development. Gates wanted to "marry" PC Software with the entertainment industry. The next step would be to find the right partners. Creative Artists Agency, Tele-Communications Inc. and Time Warner united their efforts with Microsoft and created Cablesoft. During 1993 Cablesoft made dozens of experiments to test the consumer interest in the information highway services.

Finally, Microsoft decided to abandon the Cablesoft idea, and in 1995, Gates publicly stated that he considered Internet as the most important development in the computer industry ever since IBM personal computers, as the Wired journalist Frank Rose recalls:

"By mid-1995, with the Internet boom in full motion, interactive TV was fast becoming a joke. To protect its core business and retain its credibility, Microsoft had to do something fast. (…) That May, Gates was circulating an internal memo called "The Internet Tidal Wave" in which he announced that the Net was the most important development in computing since the début of the IBM PC and declared it the company's Number One priority".

This and other pioneer trials made the same mistakes, according to the researchers, from the Portuguese University of Aveiro, Jorge Trinidad de Abreu e Vasco Afonso da Silva Branco:

But today, the necessary and sufficient conditions are gathered to allow Interactive Television to be successful, concluded the Deutsche Bank’s report "Broadband E-battle", since:

• No content or no critical mass,
• Prohibitively expensive box ($4.000 in ’93 Orlando trial),
• Lacking Infrastructure (25% two way in ’97),
• Not strategic for the big players.

• Must have ETV (Enhanced Television) – services are here: enhanced broadcasting, time shifting, video-on-demand, and program guide.
• Affordable box ($100-$350, some basic DBS boxes are free)
• Big players recognise strategic importance (Microsoft, AOL)

Internet’s explosion would solve many of Interactive Television’s problems and uncertainties, according to the researchers Jorge Trinidad Ferraz de Abreu e Vasco Afonso da Silva Branco, since in one package we find the contents, the technologies and the users of interactive services.

These researchers still have their doubts if the Internet may be applied to Interactive Television projects, considering that it is essential to ask the three following questions:

1. Web service and technology are public domain and they are not controlled bya few economical and politic agents as it happened in other kind of situations,
2. There is a great deal of uncertainty regarding the relevance of web interactivity for the common television viewer,
3. On the other hand, the television set is no longer the only solution to deliver interactive services; the PC is increasingly the alternative solution and it also is a more flexible platform for interactive services.

Therefore, the set-top box starts to include an Internet modem, both for cable connection and regular phone line connection, and also provides the specific Interactive Television programmes and services. A pioneer company in this sort of solution was Web TV Networks

that since 1996 is providing Internet access through the television set, as well as the necessary hardware for this kind of service. Microsoft bought Web TV Networks in April 1997 for about 425 million dollars, an acquisition considered at that time as the biggest ever made by Bill Gates’ company.

The project had everything to be a success. Hong Kong has an excellent telecommunications infra-structure, being considered the best place in the globe to implement video-on-demand services, and it has a population of 6 million people eager to consume the last electronic gadgets. Even Bill Gates was impressed with the project and, on purpose, he went to Hong Kong and announced that region would be Microsoft’s lab to integrate the PC and the televison.

Nevertheless, the initial enthusiasm of the entrepreneurs was not followed by the consumers. The Hong Kong Telecom predicted thay thye would have 250.000 subscribers until the end of 1998, each one paying about 50 dollars per month. The reality was quite different: the Interactive Television service only had 80.000 subscribers by the end of that year, each one paying about 35 dollars per month, half of the service costed to the company.

If the economical recession in Asia can explain partially the failure of Interactive Television projects, it can’t explain everything. Economical analysts remarked that Hong Kong Telecom made a strategic error when it provided first the service to low-income families, because it was easier to install and because they see more television than the upper classes. The Western countries have a lot to learn from the failures of these projects, concludes The Economist’s article:

"Asians are normally enthusiastic early-adopters of the latest gizmo. Western executives thrilled by the vision of an interactive future should note the apathy in Hong Kong, and beware."

In Europe, France was the first country where Interactive Television services and programmes were commercially launched, back in 1997, even if they were quite primitive compared with the actual ones. The French still hold the leadership in this industry, thanks to the 870.000 subscribers of Television par Satellite and the 3 million subscribers of Canal Satellite. But England, mainly because of the Interactive Television service Open from British Sky Broadcasting (BSkyB), is about to "steal" the first place conquered by France.


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