Gungahlin, the world's latest broadband and ITV testing site,
is now open for business - content business, that is...
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 t may look like any other outskirt 'burb of brick veneer homes, perfectly
sealed roads and quarter-grown eucalyptus saplings, but the newly established
Canberra suburb of Gungahlin is actually one of the world's most wired communities.
It is the latest high-tech test site for the delivery of mid to broadband
communications media to the home, and will look at the social impact of
the new media, as well as the technologies and business models that will
bring broadband services and true interactive television into all our lives.
Sexily entitled "Futures Research in the Televillage", the two-year
project being conducted in Gungahlin is the progeny of proud parent Telstra,
Australia's largest telco, and a range of its creative and business partners.
It will trial the delivery of existing and new telecommunications-based
multimedia services like advanced telephony (flip-top video phones); pay
TV; other video services; and interactive services. Telstra also plans to
groom selected narrow and mid-band services on the Web today for future
convergence with touch-back TV.
So, it's all systems go in the right side of this big business brainstorm,
but what of the visualisation of the plan? What sort of programs and services
will we be able to interact with? What will they look like? How can content
producers jump on the broadband wagon?
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In this special feature, CLiCK brings you the answers. We talk to people
making, trialing and questioning broadband interactive programs around the
world right now......We
also offer ideas and specifications for Australian producers interested
in getting involved in the Gungahlin trial......For a preview of a typical day in the televillage as a resident
of Gungahlin may experience it around late 1996-97......CLiCK's Guru section this issue features Robert May, CEO of Ikonic, one of the world's leading ITV creative companies ......
Interface designers will also be interested in the interview with ITV designer Mary Mooney...
. Stories-on-demand by Boris Kelly.
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