One of the longest sagas in 'internet land' is that of the BT Broadband set-top receiver. Back in 2003 it was being discussed, but now things are starting to move, with BT hinting of a subsidised £70 price tag.

The IPTV service is being dubbed 'BT Freeview Plus' looks ready for a summer launch of the trials next year, although the recent announcement for Microsoft to provide the software seems to have moved things along a bit.
The set-top box will have a 80GB capacity personal video recorder (PVR), which will probably be very similar to a Sky+ decoder, it will also feature all the freeview channels, a 14 day forward and seven day back electronic programme guide (EPG) and a comprehensive video on demand (VOD) service.

But an interesting point made over at ADSLGuide is whether the service will be available to consumers on only the BT Retail ISP packages, or available to customers on all broadband providers. Also as the BTBroadband packages have mostly usage allowances applied how this will interact set-top service is also unknown.