BREAKING. SouthTel silent on VOD:TV; suddenly no longer talking about its promised VOD:TV video-on-demand service.

SouthTel has gone silent, unwilling to talk about its big promises for what the company said would be South Africa's first true video-on-demand (VOD) service.

Several months after SouthTel said it would start its new VOD:TV service with HD content, and wowing TV executives in November last year with the double sided VOD:TV remote control, industry insiders are now starting to wonder: Is SouthTel and VOD:TV another pipedream like WowTV, Super 5 Media, eSat and all the other pay TV businesses over promising and then never starting?

SouthTel promised TV executives an early 2012 launch but with June 2012 fast approaching, SouthTel has made no mention of the intended new launch date for VOD:TV which was tested in 2011 with 70 decoders and which SouthTel said would give South African TV viewers 200 hours of HD viewable content per month (or 400 hours of SD content) on its PVR decoder.

MultiChoice currently offers the DStv on Demand and DStv Box Office VOD service to DStv Premium subscribers. Although good and growing its not a "perfect system" in the sense that its not a true return-path PVR system.

SouthTel said that its revolutionary video-on-demand service would come with a 3G card to enable a true return-path and make true interactive VOD television possible for the first time in Africa. Now SouthTel doesn't want to talk about where the business is at and how and why the roll-out plans for VOD:TV has changed.

Neither SouthTel nor CEO Oscar Dube had any comment on questions and media enquiries made last week about VOD:TV's proposed launch date, when the service will be rolled out commercially and why it has been postponed, or what the latest is that SouthTel can say about VOD:TV.

Asked if SouthTel has anything to share or tell about VOD:TV in general, SouthTel cited "non-disclosure" issues.