Going around, coming around again on the I-way. (Internet telephony via cable)(Broadband Week)

Fin de siecle has such a fine ring to it. As the end of the century approaches, we'll use it more often, ignoring perhaps the fact that one of the dictionary definitions of the French term is "progressive ideas and customs."

Actually - and maybe this is merely a post-Anaheim flashback - the year seems to be starting with a strange feeling of deja vu. For example:

Saving paper: Do you think that Dr. John Malone waited to place his mega-million-digital-box order with NextLevel until after it changed its name back to General Instrument?

This means that TCI could just pull out the 1992 purchase order (a similar digital promise) and use it again, without having to retype it.

Cablephone via IP: Cable telephony may still have an opportunity to succeed, thanks to - of all things - the Internet. Despite a few glorious reports of up to 5 percent penetration, the phone-via-cable opportunity continues to flounder.

Now, however, the Internet is offering cable a second chance at getting into the voice business. The diversifying cable-modem exhibits at the Western Show pointed to several ways in which cable operators could find a "killer app" in Internet-voice services - possibly more appealing than faster Web-data access, which is at the heart of most cable-modem ventures today. TCI president Leo Hindery spoke warmly of using Internet protocol for cable telephony during his Western Show remarks.

While IP telephony still suffers from unpleasant pauses and limited access, there's great public interest in the low pricing and the telco alternative.

Technology is improving rapidly; indeed, a few days before the Western Show, ITXC Corp. (a venture set up with AT&T and VocalTec seed money) unveiled its WWeX-change to interconnect Internet-telephony providers through the Web.

Of course, Internet telephony via cable is appealing to interexchange carriers (including ITXC's backer, AT&T), which need local-bypass connections. This adds credence to AT&T's alleged courtship of TCI, @Home and any other local circuit into the IP-telephony world. Some cable companies - such as U S West Media Group - continue their aggressive pursuit of conventional cable-telephony technology.

But the best opportunities may now lie in exploiting Internet and cable-modem development for more popular - and useful - voice connections.

What about the SSSI VBI? (No worry about losing acronyms as fin de siecle approaches.) During the 1980s, when few cared, Southern Satellite Systems Inc. experimented with data transmission in its vertical blanking interval. Its ventures were virtually ignored.

Today, when Wink, Wave-Top, Intercast and other interactive adventurers are relying on the VBI data feed, the VBI has greater value: presumably some part of $213 million, based on what Time Warner paid to acquire SSSI last month.

The VBI piggybacks with TBS Superstation (also owned by Time Warner), which SSSI retransmits to almost every U.S. cable system and the 68 million homes that they reach. Hence, it's a guaranteed data path to the home, unless cable operators strip out the satellite VBI for their own purposes.

The original SSSI-WTBS deal was one of the most legendary deals of the early cable-satellite era: SSSI paid Ted Turner $1 for the rights to retransmit his Atlanta TV station under regulatory guidelines at the time.

Two questions remain: Who gets to keep the original dollar bill? And what data will be filling that VBI that Time Warner now so clearly controls from end-to-end?

WebTV - forgotten, but not gone: Although many cable executives would like to think that Microsoft was sandbagged by the cable MSOs' 15 million-unit order for GI's digital set-top box, the Redmond giant is inching its way into the living room through other routes. Notably, its WebTV subsidiary is continuing to find an audience, despite problems in delivering its second-generation system in time for Christmas. Mitsubishi Consumer Electronics says it can't keep up with demand for its version of the WebTV box.

Other manufacturers are also hustling to fill orders, suggesting that a significant core of customers will have a Microsoft-based digital device in place well before new cable boxes reach households. The living-room war is just beginning.

New year, familiar stories - likely to repeat themselves through fin de siecle and beyond, as we circle the wagons along the interactive highway again and again and again.

I-Way Patrol columnist Gary Arlen gets dizzy forgetting the difference between fin de siecle and trompe l'oeil.