Council pilots digital TV project

Islington Borough Council is piloting an interactive digital TV project in partnership with reseller Data Integration and content provider Ouija Media.

Due to go live in April, the project is an example of the new business opportunities open to resellers, as their small size means that many councils turn to the channel when buying products and services.

Julian Grazebrook, managing director at Data Integration, said: "[The public sector] is a growing business opportunity for integrators that understand the [e-government] strategy and how to implement it."

He added that, if the pilot is approved, the expertise gained in implementing the scheme will add a new product to the integrator's portfolio. "Having done due diligence and provided the concept we can advise any number of councils," he said.

An Islington Borough Council spokeswoman commented: "The plan is to use digital TV to bring useful services such as paying rent and ordering repairs into the home. It will also offer free email as well as community TV channels.

"The pilot, which will initially run for three months, will connect 100 council homes initially but, if successful, we are looking for it to go to every council-owned home, which is a total of about 30,000.

"The pilot is about finding out what people want and seeing what works and what doesn't and, at the same time, ensuring that we are in line with the e-government strategy."

Data Integration is implementing a high bandwidth network infrastructure with content being delivered by Ouija Media.

"We are providing a 10Mbps Ethernet connection to the homes to support the high bandwidth services," said Simon Crumplin, head of business development at Data Integration.

According to Rick Glanvill, director at Ouija Media, the content will also offer high bandwidth video on demand and gaming.

"We are looking for proof of concept and to show that [residents] can interact with an open local government and their community and make genuine changes to their environment and lives," he explained.