Skype creators set their sights on TV service

Codenamed The Venice Project, IPTV for everyone

18 December 2006 12:58 GMT / By Amber Maitland

The Skype guys are at it again. The entrepreneurs arguably at the forefront at the VoIP revolution are hoping to work their magic for IPTV, or TV on demand, via broadband.

Janus Friis and Niklas Zennstrom used some of the money they made from the sale of Skype to eBay in order to finance the TV project, codenamed The Venice Project.

In an interview with the Financial Times, the Danes explained that their service would work via P2P technology, so that it would be possible to serve “tens of millions of users”.

“At the time we launched Skype, broadband capacity was extremely ripe for communication”, said Mr Friis to the newspaper. “Now, three years later, it's the same thing for video: you can do TV over the internet in a really good way".

“TV is a huge medium – that's something we'd like to be a part of.”

The service will compete with a planned catch-up TV service from the BBC, BT's video on demand service, BT Vision, and individual content providers like Channel 4's 4oD, recently launched.

The Venice Project describes its mission as “fixing TV, removing artificial limits such as the number of channels that your cable or the airwaves can carry and then bringing it into the internet age”.

Currently being tested by 6000 people, the service has an easy user interface that lets users search for programmes, pause, rewind, and fast forward programmes, and interact with other users through commenting and even conference calling.

Full tags

Home Cinema, Video on demand, Skype, YouTube, MySpace