Sorry for the wave of posts, I'm off sick today and the arrival of my Pronto coinsided with me finding out this news and being phoned by telewest to see if I want to upgrade to a digital box.

I emailed Vik at Pace with a few thoughts, he was kind enough to send me the following reply (with his permission to pass it on):

As I stated in my reply we have to supply what the
customer asks for . Pace do not design a box and then try and sell it , we
work closely with the customer to arrive at a technically and economically
possible solution . In this case the Two Way TV system was chosen because
the normal system could not support multi handset use and also no doubt
influenced by the fact that the customer also owned Two Way TV .
However all is not lost . The box has an IR blaster feature
which enables it to transmit high power IR commands to other pieces of
equipment in the room , hence the box could with the appropriate software
make the multi - function handset redundant . This hardware feature is
designed to be a carrier based system and will be activated in the future by
down loading new software to the box via the cable . The initial use will be
to adjust the volume of the TV set but no doubt other features will follow .
We are in the very early days of digital cable interactive networks , we
are all learning what is possible . We have designed the box in such a
manner that the complete operating system within the box can be changed /
updated from the head end to include new features which have sufficient
demand from the subscribers . Times are a-changing ----- and the rate of
change is accelerating . We are living in very exciting times , we have to
design boxes that will use chips that have not yet been built - we are
waiting for prototype samples , that's how fast things have become .
Any way , thanks for your feedback - all comments are noted .

END of VIKS EMAIL

I think he is saying that the PACE box may (in their view) make our Puny universal remotes redundant! I guess Pace have never seen a Pronto then!!!