New Delhi: State-run telecom giant Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd (MTNL) announced on Tuesday the launch of the three-in-one service – clubbing cable TV and Internet with basic telephony – marking a giant leap in India's quest for media convergence.
MTNL, which caters to customers in Delhi and Mumbai, is the first service provider to start the three-in-one service, although private player Bharti Telecom has been offering a similar service, 'Triple Play' on a pilot basis in some parts of the country.
To begin with MTNL would be offering 30 free-to-air channels at a charge of Rs 125 while adding other pay channels as per Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) guidelines, R S P Sinha, CMD, MTNL said launching the service.
MTNL has tied up with Aksh Optic fibre and UT Starcom for for the delivery of Internet Protocol Television (IPTV).
Sinha said the service has various features like video on demand, time-shifted TV – a technology tat enables one to watch last one week's television content aired by any available channel at the push of a button - and video conferencing facility on TV.
Registration of IPTC service would begin from October 25 while commercial operations would commence from November 1.
MTNL has 1.52 lakh broadband subscriber in Delhi and 1.83 lakh in Mumbai, Sinha said adding, "we would like to target first these subscribers and then fixed line users for IPTV."
On the billing front, Sinha said from January 1 subscribers would get a consolidated bill for all the three services – phone, broadband and IPTV – together.
MTNL has also planned to offer set top boxes at a fixed deposit, which would be returned after five years with interest making it virtually free of cost to the subscriber.
"The price for set-top box would be treated as a fixed deposit in a bank, which will fetch interest rate as per bank norms," he added.
The video data beamed through IPTV would be charged as a fixed monthly amount, independent of the number of hours or megabytes used, Sinha said.
IPTV would also allow creation of third party applications that can be offered through the system ranging from booking movie tickets to trading of stocks while watching a news broadcast channel, he added.
Aksh Optifibre Managing Director Kailash Choudhari said, "with the launch of IPTV, our company will be uniquely advantaged as a solution provider for a service that has the potential to reach over 40 million consumers across India."
UTStarcom MD Vijay Yadav said, the company is ideally positioned to support select service providers in leveraging the potential of the latest in technology.
Comments
0 comment