SFGate

A few years ago, a team of Microsoft engineers invited some SBC executives to a small Mountain View apartment. The engineers had jury-rigged an Xbox gaming console into a set-top box to control the television set.

The SBC executives were getting their first glimpse of IPTV, or Internet Protocol Television, which uses your phone line to deliver programming to your television. Much like cable or satellite television, IPTV uses a set-top box that allows customers to cruise hundreds of channels such as HBO, MTV and ESPN, and order movies and other shows anytime through video-on-demand.

“It looked really good,” said Peter Barrett, chief technology officer of Microsoft TV. “The hair on the back of everybody’s neck stood up, and they said, ‘Wow, we really have something here.’ ”

Now SBC, which has since changed its name to AT&T, plans to roll out IPTV in the Bay Area, possibly as early as this year. Once it does, IPTV will offer another alternative for television service in the Bay Area and an entirely new way of delivering it to your home.

IPTV uses the same kind of technology that delivers high-speed Internet service to the computer. That opens the door to a host of new, untapped features, such as more interactivity and the potential for thousands, as opposed to hundreds, of channels.

“There are a lot of future applications,” said Michelle Abraham, principal analyst at In-Stat, a technology research firm. “Videoconferencing through your television is one of the things they’re talking about, or being able to chat with friends as the television program is going on.”

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