NYNEX concludes Manhattan video dial tone trial

NEW YORK CITY -- In a letter to the Federal Communications Commission, NYNEX today said that it will conclude its trial of Video Dial Tone (VDT) services in Manhattan.

The company expects technology that will support a new, more advanced trial of digital video services to be available next year. At that time, NYNEX plans to begin testing a system to deliver digital video services to high rise apartment buildings in New York City.

NYNEX's VDT trial using analog technology, began in January of 1994 and was extended through July of this year. It was one of the first successful field tests of interactive video-on-demand services in the nation.

"NYNEX has learned a great deal from this trial," said Walter Silvia, vice president, Broadband Marketing and Implementation. "We gained valuable experience in deploying and managing interactive video systems. We learned about the volume of traffic to expect on these systems. We learned about the engineering and operating characteristics of Hybrid Fiber Coaxial (HFC) systems and we benefited from working closely with a number of video information providers. This knowledge will be crucial as the technology to deliver advanced video services matures over the next year.

"With technology moving so rapidly, we decided to start fresh and conduct a full evaluation of these systems over a one-year period," said Silvia.

NYNEX is a global communications and media company that provides a full range of services in the northeastern United States and high-growth markets around the world, including the United Kingdom, Thailand, Gibraltar, Greece, Indonesia, the Philippines, Poland, Slovakia and the Czech Republic.

The Corporation is a leader in the telecommunications, wireless communications, cable television, directory publishing and entertainment and information services.