What are you doing watching television? |
Imagine your television being able
to provide 10, 20 or 30 more channels than it does today. Or imagine being able
to order films and television programmes to be shown when you want to see them.
Or being able to vote on issues of local interest or a television service that
allows you to play electronic games. Well, these were the changes that Warner
Brothers brought to TV viewers when they introduced multi-channel television
to American cable viewers in 1977.
It was at the time a revolution in television viewing, and the last milestone
in the development of television technology.
Now
imagine your television being able to provide not 20 or 30 more channels, but
200. Or imagine using your television to make appointments with your local GP,
or your local hospital or the local college. Or imagine conducting an entire
college course, or getting information on your families health or checking the
progress of your children at their schools, all using the domestic television.
The opportunities brought by the introduction of digital television (DTV) a
few years ago already allow viewers to shop, order pizza and book movies. In
a few more years those same viewers will be able to use DTV technology to do
even more things which will change the medium forever from being a provider
of entertainment to it being a vital tool in the use of most local community
services. Read more about the arrival
of digital television.
Using new technology for the benefit of residents |
Because of advancing digital technology
the humble television is about to have a more empowering impact on peoples lives
than the telephone or the personal computer.
It is because of these kinds of opportunities, and because of the speed of the
changes taking place in this developing market that a consortium made up of
The Housing Corporation, the London boroughs of Camden and Newham, London &
Quadrant Housing Group and St Pancras Housing Association came together to create
its own DTV project. The objectives behind this decision were to exploit this
technology for the benefit of residents by testing its ability to provide services
and enable decision making in the homes (in the front rooms if you will) of
local people.
Friday 28 July 2000 saw the first fruits of this project with the birth of the
Smart Communities holding
company. The trading arm of Smart Communities is DKtv Limited, a separate company
which will have the responsibility for joining local authorities, housing associations,
health agencies and other public sector service providers together within a
single digital television framework.
Why digital televison? |
Digital television may not appear
to be the natural territory for the public sector, it being the world of shopping,
movies on demand and home banking. And then there is the fact that it is a broadcast
medium dominated by commercial and audience interests and shaped by the demands
of advertisers and programme makers. Whereas many public sector organisations
now have some kind of experience exploiting what we recognise as the internet
to provide services, the world of digital television remains a new frontier.
But there are real potential benefits on offer to the sector if it chooses to
engage with the technology, and the possibility that it can also improve the
efficiency of organisations such as housing associations.
With Smart Communities we are creating what is known as a content aggregate
which will organise community services for residents, initially in the south
east of England and eventually throughout the country. We plan for the Smart
Communities DKtv service to be carried by digital satellite, terrestrial and
cable broadcasters and for it to be supported by the network of organisations
that currently provide such services by other means.
The viewer will access the DKtv service via their digital television or set-top
box and then make their choice via the on-screen menu. DKtv will then route
this request to the source of the required information, or to the service needed
and then carry the information or service back to the viewer.
DKtv will also be 'not for profit'. By this we mean that though the service
will be geared to be as commercial as possible in its operations and generation
of revenue it will not pay its profits out to shareholders. Instead we will
be investing this income back into the project and into the communities that
receive the DKtv service.
The business benefits for the sector |
Interactive DTV will soon be the dominant information technology in the daily lives of the British population and will offer a growing range of benefits, most of which will take the form of high quality interactive services. For organisations such as local authorities, educational agencies and housing associations there clearly exists opportunities within this developing market to provide services for customers in ways that were previously impossible, and the potential business benefits are clear:
Providing a range of services |
Within the planned DKtv service
we plan for a range of services which can demonstrate these kinds of benefits:
A Training & Employment package
This would give information on local training and job vacancies and allow viewers
to make appointments with their local Employment Service, and allow the Service
to contact them.
Health services
These will allow viewers to link directly with their local health authority
to access its services and information, or could allow those with specific support
needs (diabetes, HIV etc.) to use services and information directly relevant
to them.
Maintenance services
Using
this system viewers would be able to request a repair. The service will then
offer the viewer calendar options for any maintenance visit and the viewer will
be able to choose which is best for them. Once this is done the viewer will
simply have to wait for the visit to take place. In addition the viewer will
be able to view their own account summary which would show details of works
carried out on their property, by whom and for what reason. The viewer will
also have the option to score these works as totheir level of satisfaction with
the works completed.
Homes services
By selecting this option viewers will be able to register their property details
in a personal profile, and once registered check which properties on the system
they can swap with. Or, they could search for available properties in the areas
they are interested in.
Such services would enable those served by organisations such as housing associations
to receive an efficient and reliable service, changing drastically their opinion
of the services they receive.
It is also true though that the DTV environment is in the process of being shaped,
and Smart Communities wishes to play a part in this by using the technology
to allow people a say in what happens in their local communities. This is because
it allows for involvement, discussion and real decision making at a local level
and the project will be working to make these possibilities a reality.
Development and testing |
To make the project ambitions a
reality the Smart Communities partners have come together to support a development
project which will develop such a range of services and e-democracy options.
This will then be tested in the London boroughs of Newham and Camden. Viewers
living in these areas using either a cable of a satellite system will be able
to make use of the package and contribute to the further development of the
service. If this testing is successful then the DKtv service will be expanded
and rolled out nationally to all digital viewers. Development work on these
services begins this month, with testing to take place by early 2001.
The objectives of this exercise are:
1) To establish the demand of viewers of the system (i.e. what they actually want to see on it)
2) To find out how DKtv will actually be used by its viewers
3) To test the realistic possibilities of the planned SC services
4) To discover the strengths and weaknesses of the planned DKtv back-end data and routing systems
5) To test the on-screen and back-end DKtv database designs
6) To discover the experiences of different delivery mechanisms in carrying services into viewers homes
7) To discover the levels of viewer
and customer support which the full service may require
To enable this model to work we will be using an application system based upon
individual viewer profiles. These profiles will be records of the local services
used by viewers, their choice of providers and their specific needs. By matching
this information with the provider of local services we aim to provide a service
that is quick, reliable and easy to use. Whereas using internet services can
sometimes be laborious and reliant upon the user entering information to receive
the required service, with DKtv the viewer will be 'recognised' by the system
and their requests routed directly to the best provider of their service. It
will be a genuinely smart and friendly system that will recognise each viewer
as an individual.
Which is one of the (many) challenges that face the project.
Because putting aside the very real and precise issues around the appropriate
management of such personal information, actually basing a system so precisely
on the needs of the residents across such a broad range of services is rife
with difficulties:
Conclusions |
The scope for all the kinds of project
difficulties that can predictably arise from such a combination of factors are
well recognised. So making Smart Communities a success is going to be extremely
demanding and is far from assured. But if we can make it work we will be able
to deliver a new way for people to engage with and get the best from their local
communities and their political representatives.
Smart
Communities is an ambitious and demanding project. Whereas there is already
a diverse range of commercial DTV services and with even more in the pipeline,
DKtv will be bringing an entirely new kind of public service to viewers. This
will be diverse, comprehensive and will change the way that viewers see digital
television. It will become for them a place where they can reach through to
their local council, their housing association, their GP, their local school
and to their MP easily and without charge.
We are lucky with the project in that we started it when we did. The DTV environment
is being shaped before our eyes. It is a completely new medium whose potentials
are yet to be fully explored. But by entering it now, in partnership with the
broadcasters and service providers who are invested in making DKtv a success
we believe that we can create a real and sustainable space for the public sector
in this digital universe.
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