AT&T Co is joining forces with GTE Corp’s Irving, Texas-based GTE Telephone Operations in an interactive video services trial in the Manassas, Virginia area, to begin later this year using AT&T’s new video server, which is the one that uses a mass of memory chips to store the sound and moving pictures (CI No 2,183). The services will begin at the end of the year and are expected to reach more than 1,000 subscribers by mid-1995. It will provide customers with such interactive services as home shopping, educational programming, multi-player games and information services. GTE and other programmers will also provide video-on-demand, enhanced pay-per-view, and a full range of traditional broadcast and cable entertainment programming, and the network will have the two-way capability for distance learning, work-at-home and video conferencing. As well as the chip-based server, AT&T will supply a new Asynchronous Transfer Mode switch, the GCNS-2000, mixed fibre and coaxial video transport system and new digital encoding equipment.
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