There are numerous predictions for future of iDTV from a range of industry and government sources, some of them predicting that internet access from TV will exceed access from PC's within a few years, others predict a boom equal or exceeding that of mobile phones or home PC's experienced in recent years.

Suffolk County Council, Ipswich Borough Council and Babergh District Council were not going to let an opportunity like this pass them by. With funding from Pathfinder, they set about launching the country's first iDTV Council project, helping to shape iDTV for local government as part of the movement to deliver e-government by 2005.

A Recipe For Success's role in the project was to source content, edit it into an acceptable format for television (a difficult task with only 215 characters per page) and then enter this into the content management system, providing some basic training to council employees who needed it.

The nearer to launch day everyone got, the more challenging it became for all parties involved, as a project like this had never been attempted before. However, everyone seemed to learn from the experience and at every stage, it was acknowledged that this is, after all, a 'pathfinder'.

The official launch took place on Friday 5th July at the Wolsey Theatre, Ipswich. Among the speakers were Chris Mole, MP for Ipswich, Cllr Kathy Pollard (Suffolk), Angus Doulton (PEG project) and representatives from Sky and Fujitsu.