Abstract: An interactive television trigger has a time attribute value that indicates a future time when the trigger is to be executed. In situations where the trigger cannot be sent to the receiver unit at the desired time of trigger execution (for example, due to limited available bandwidth of a communication channel to the receiver unit), the trigger is sent prior to the future time. The receiver unit then executes the trigger on the receiver unit at the future time as indicated by the time attribute. The trigger can be sent well before the future time so that a receiver unit that receives the trigger can prefetch an information resource identified by the trigger prior to the future time such that the information resource is already available on the receiver unit when the trigger is later executed at the future time.

Abstract: In interactive television, a broadcaster may broadcast triggers to a great many receiver units prompting the receiver units to attempt to send requests to a single destination on the Internet at roughly the same time. Such a large number of simultaneous requests can give rise to throughput problems and server overload. A receiver unit in accordance with the invention, rather than immediately attempting to send a request, waits a period of time (for example, a random period) before sending the request so as not to overload the server. In one embodiment, a trigger is received on an interactive television receiver unit prompting the viewer to select an icon. If the viewer selects the icon, then a browser in the receiver unit retrieves a web page on the Internet identified by a URL in the trigger. The web page includes an indication of a destination, scheduling information, and a form area. The viewer enters user information in association with the form area.