Telstra has made an announcement that it is planning to release its new digital set top box by the later part of this month.

The T-Box is a personal video recorder with a 320GB internal hard drive and two high-definition digital television tuners. It will permit users to access free-to-air TV channels, internet TV channels, TV shows and the alternative to make selection out of seven BigPond channels, a library of on-demand videos plus video clips on YouTube when is connected to the Internet via Telstra's BigPond service.

T-Box, selling at $299, will also present control free-to-air TV, with pause, rewind and fast-forward capabilities and capability of recording programs for up to seven days in advance.

The launch follows the release of the T-Hub gadget back in April and marks an augmented focus by the Telco to deal with declining fixed line revenues via new IP-based services.

As reported by Computerworld Australia, trying to maintain fixed line revenues has been a key challenge for Telstra. In February, the corporation flagged that income from PSTN services had plunged $222 million year on year during the previous half.

The good thing is that the T-Box is cheap and will permit consumers to bundle services with other internet services and their landline phone.