Canby convergence

Long-range planning in our house includes the question of how to set up electronics for the long haul. That would seem to involve convergence – meshing the telephone, television, computer, DVD, stereo and so forth into one mega-unit, or maybe a collection of mid-sized pieces linked together. It seems to be the way of the future, and a pretty good way at that.
Making the developments in Canby – pioneering in Oregon, though one of several around the country – worth watching here, and maybe in other houses too.
Telephone service in Canby is provided by the Canby Telephone Association, a long-time farmer coop. The CTA is joining an experiment in cabling television through telephone lines, an idea that seemed impossible just a few years ago but now has become doable, alongside such former impossibles as broadband Internet service.
From the Oregonian: “IPTV enters homes through a regular phone jack and then connects to a computer modem smaller than a shoe box. A small box on top of the TV decodes the signal. The service doesn't require a home computer and doesn't tie up the home phone line and Internet connection. When viewers change channels, a guide appears at the bottom of the screen to tell them what network they're watching and what program is on. If someone calls while the TV is on, the caller's number pops up on the TV screen.
“In a recent demonstration, Canby Telephone's picture generally looked clear and sharp, though fast-moving images occasionally broke up into pixels -- a defect caused by the video compression. Phone line capacity is also too limited to support high-definition TV, but the cooperative said it hopes a new generation of technology will make HDTV possible.”
What’re the odds?