New Delhi, Aug 6: Country's leading telecom player Bharti Airtel will launch its much-awaited direct-to-home (DTH) services by January-March 2008 and will roll out the IPTV services starting with the national capital by December this year.
''The process is on track and we hope that Bharti will come out with its DTH portfolio early next year,'' Bharti Airtel President (Broadband and Telephone Services) Atul Bindal told the sources here today.
He said the IPTV will be launched in Delhi by the end of this calendar year. Next year, it will be launched in five major cities.
Mr Bindal, however, refused to comment on whether the company has got license for the DTH services, but said that everything is on track for its early next year roll-out.
''We will roll out the IPTV on entire variety of channels (voice, data and video). Currently, pilots with 1,000 customers are on with a capacity of 100 channels,'' Mr Bindal said.
The company is tying with number of channel partners, both national and global, including Cisco for the IPTV launch.
In addition, Bharti is committed to invest three billion dollars across all mobile segments, Mr Bindal added.
The broadband and telephone services (IPTV and DTH) has grown 10-15 per cent over the next three months and will grow 60-70 per cent, more faster than PCs and laptops.
Meanwhile, in a bid to address several ambiguities regarding IPTV, the government will soon ask TRAI to launch a consultation process on this service.
Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) is a service, where a customer can get digital TV signals (voice, data and video) through landline telephone connections, rather than the traditional method of cable lines. The technology is considered a threat to DTH, CAS and cable TV industry.
The issues that are expected to be addressed during TRAI's consultation process include quality of service norms, FDI norms, exclusivity of content, pricing of TV channels over this platform and content related issues.
UNI
''The process is on track and we hope that Bharti will come out with its DTH portfolio early next year,'' Bharti Airtel President (Broadband and Telephone Services) Atul Bindal told the sources here today.
He said the IPTV will be launched in Delhi by the end of this calendar year. Next year, it will be launched in five major cities.
Mr Bindal, however, refused to comment on whether the company has got license for the DTH services, but said that everything is on track for its early next year roll-out.
''We will roll out the IPTV on entire variety of channels (voice, data and video). Currently, pilots with 1,000 customers are on with a capacity of 100 channels,'' Mr Bindal said.
The company is tying with number of channel partners, both national and global, including Cisco for the IPTV launch.
In addition, Bharti is committed to invest three billion dollars across all mobile segments, Mr Bindal added.
The broadband and telephone services (IPTV and DTH) has grown 10-15 per cent over the next three months and will grow 60-70 per cent, more faster than PCs and laptops.
Meanwhile, in a bid to address several ambiguities regarding IPTV, the government will soon ask TRAI to launch a consultation process on this service.
Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) is a service, where a customer can get digital TV signals (voice, data and video) through landline telephone connections, rather than the traditional method of cable lines. The technology is considered a threat to DTH, CAS and cable TV industry.
The issues that are expected to be addressed during TRAI's consultation process include quality of service norms, FDI norms, exclusivity of content, pricing of TV channels over this platform and content related issues.
UNI
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