Telstra promotes its high-speed broadband by announcing its T-Box

A brand new digital set-top box called the T-Box has now been launched by Telstra in what could be seen as an intensifying of competition in the home entertainment market.

The unit provides the ability to download films from the movie store and gain integrated access to exclusive internet TV channels both through Bigpond, view and record free-to-air TV, and pause and rewind live TV according to director of product management at Telstra, Holly Kramer.

Ms Kramer also added that the channels offered on the T-Box are “complementary” to the channels that are available through Foxtel, which is half owned by Telstra.

Customers of Bigpond in the Melbourne who have been “selected and invited” are currently using the devices, which is a personal video recorder or PVR with internet capabilities and comes with a 200GB hard disk drive, as part of a trial although next year should see the device being rolled out to the rest of Australia.

The popular TiVo and similar Foxtel IQ products that both offer movie download services will be the main competition that will be faced by the Telstra T-Box. Also, the PlayTV accessory that is available for the Playstation 3 consoles, which allows users to both record and watch high definition TV, now means that Sony has now become a new rival.

No pricing has been released yet for the T-Box by Telstra, although compared to other broadband network providers in Australia, Telstra is widely seen to be one of the more costly operators. To provide a rough estimate of the potential cost of the T-Box when it goes on sale the PlayTV accessory from Sony will cost $169.95 but will need a PS3 console, whilst it costs around $600 to but a TiVo PVR unit.

Source – WatoDay