07.10.2008 — By 2013, half of U.S. cable subscribers will use tru2way technology, says a new ABI Research study.

CablesLabs' successor to OpenCable Applications Platform (OCAP) is breathing some life into two-way interactive cable. Tru2way enables TVs access to interactive digital and HD services without a settop box.

CE Players have been hesitant to adopt tru2way. Panasonic, Samsung, LG Electronics and Thomson, however, displayed a total of six TVs and settop boxes with tru2way compatibility at 2008 CES.

Sony also recently adopted tru2way and struck a deal with the six largest cable companies, which service more than 82 percent of U.S. cable subscribers.

ABI Research principal analyst Steve Wilson says many industry-political obstacles and interoperability challenges must be overcome along the way.

"Consumer electronics manufacturers have been at odds with the cable industry over tru2way for a long time," he says. "It's been a pretty contentious era.

"Vendors say the implementation is too expensive and that it’s overkill for basic services. They point out that many cable operators aren’t even deploying these systems.

"The cable operators themselves won’t provide forecasts for tru2way STB deployments. They’re not willing to tell the market (or developers) how many boxes they expect to ship over time."