San Jose, California-based First Pacific Networks Inc reports that TeleWest Communications Group Ltd, the UK cable television joint venture of Tele-Communications Inc and US West Inc is to use a multimedia system patented by the company to deliver telephone service over its television cables: the value of the contract was not disclosed; TeleWest has been testing the First Pacific equipment since 1992 and says it can transmit telephone, computer and video signals to as many as 50,000 subscribers in Britain on a single cable trunk, so that subscribers could order products on home shopping programmes by touching a multimedia control panel instead of making a telephone call.
