Two-way communications between the TV viewer and service providers. Although various experiments took place in the 1980s, interactive TV never took off as expected. The closest thing to it is the ability to play, stop and rewind movies from the video-on-demand (VOD) offerings on cable TV. Using IPTV, the telephone companies are expected to provide competition to the cable operators. See IPTV, Internet TV, video-on-demand and digital convergence.