The Nynex International arm of New York Baby Bell Nynex Corp is expanding its activities in the UK and negotiating for several cable television and telecommunication franchises. The company has teamed up with Epsom, Surrey-based Britannia Cablesystems for franchises in several areas across the UK, including Bradford, which is to be awarded by the Cable Authority on June 14. Britannia says that should they be awarded the franchise, they would spend UKP67m building a fibre optic cable network as close to homes and businesses as current economics allow. Such a network would be built over a four year period and be expected to serve 165,000 homes and about 8,400 businesses. The charge would be UKP12.99 per month for a standard 28 channel service, and premium channels carrying Sky and BSB films would cost UKP6 per month. There is also a flat installation fee of UKP35. Nynex claims that it is particularly interested in the opportunities presented by the cable television entertainments industry, partly as a vehicle for providing value added services. An example is the new communications service currently linking four hospitals in the Boston, Massachusetts area. Nynex and its New England Telephone Co neighbour have launched a three-year trial of the Media Broadband Service. It combines images, voice and text in packages which can be stored or accessed as required. The five components are network and applications software, video display monitors, fibre optic cables, and broadband switches. The network software enables multimedia conferencing, and it tracks which user is controlling sessions, images, files, and directories. The application software can either be supplied by Nynex or specifically designed, and video display monitors provide high-quality images for viewing X-rays and photographs. Broadband switches transport large amounts of traffic, and Nynex intends to upgrade the current ones to a prototype Switched Multimegabit Data Service version in 1991, which will enable local area network users to tie several networks together in a wide area network. Nynex claims that such a system could be equally applicable in the UK to computer aided design projects, although it is in discuss-ions with St Mary’s Hospital in Paddington and the University of Manchester. Nynex acknowledges that restrictive legislation in the US means there are fewer opportunities to build cable television and telephony services than in the UK. However, while extolling the virtues of the deregulated environment, both Nynex and Britannia are critical of the phone duopoly that exists in the UK. Nicholas Mearing-Smith, chairman of Britannia Cable Systems and the Cable Television Association, is keenly awaiting the consultative document of the Duopoly Review due in November. He says that British Telecom wants to carry television on its main network only because it would kill off the independent cable companies and further cement its still enormous power base.
