WebTV Networks' business model was to license a reference design to consumer electronics companies for a "WebTV Internet Terminal", a set-top box that attached to a telephone line and automatically connected to the Internet through a dial-up modem. The consumer electronics companies' income was derived from selling the WebTV set-top box. WebTV's income was derived from operating the WebTV Service, the Internet-based service to which the set-top boxes connected and for which it collected a fee from WebTV subscribers. The service provided features such as HTML-based email, and proxied websites, which were reformatted by the service before they were sent to set-top box, to make them display more efficiently on a television screen.