Team-BHP - Direct-To-Home television in India. Update DTH UHD (4K) now available

After about 2 months of tata sky usage, I got to experience their esteemed service...

2 days back, I woke up to saw that box complaining about "no signal". After looking around, figured out that a pipe in dish has developed a crack. This is pipe which projects out from the dish. At its base, it has developed a small crack, which has made the rcvr at the end of this stick, go out of alignment.

So I told them that I need a service engg at my place. Already they have confirmed and moved the schedule for about 5 time. Now its almost 48hours after i have registered for this service engg visit and no has showed up yet.

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and to top it off, all the building facades are being ruined with small dish's sticking out, and even more wires hanging all over.

Tata sky did a neat installation. He took the cable thru socket provided in the appartment. It comes inside my appartment thru the wall mount socket. Where the neighbours dish tv cable, is dangling over the building and enter thru their balcony.

Joining the ranks of DTH (Direct-to-Home) providers - Tata Sky, Dish TV, and DD Direct, Bharti Airtel will also launch its DTH services by end this year, Chairman and Managing Director, Sunil Mittal, announced.

Mittal said they have already applied for DTH license, and expect to get it fairly soon. He said the company would subsequently start DTH operations, basis availability of transponder space on satellites with an Indian footprint.

Most likely, Bharti Airtel would get transponder space on the Insat 4CR satellite, scheduled for launch sometime in August or September this year. Also likely, the company would share space with the to-be-launched, Reliance 'Blue Magic' DTH service.

Bharti Airtel's DTH services would fall under its broadband vertical with just under 2 million connections.

Towards the proposed service, a subsidiary called Bharti Telemedia has already been floated. Besides, Bharti's manufacturing arm, Bharti Teletech, is currently into manufacture/import of set-top-boxes (STBs) under the brand name 'Betel' mainly for free-to-air (FTA) channels.

And, the hub needed for downlinking and de-encrypting channel feeds in DTH is likely coming up at Manesar in Haryana.

Mittal clarified that they would remain neutral as far as content goes, preferring content providers to approach them.

Apart from this, Mittal also announced that the company has invested over Rs 1,000 crores in Gujarat, and that it intends to expand both mobile and fixed line services in the state.

Techtree.com India > News > Telecom > Bharti Airtel DTH Roll Out this Year!

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Originally Posted by Bass&Trouble (Post 407668)

Does any service provider have a combination of DTH television and internet using the same gear?

Not yet.. Combo boxes on satellite DTH and dsl are not there, but you will have that feature is the IPSTB that a few vendors will start offering.

The number of satellite DTH vendors will increase, not too sure it is in our best interest though as a good number of them do not know much about that market, but only are entering this because they have the money. Some of the new players will be - Bharathi, Sun, Reliance, Videocon etc. In terms of interactivity, the telephone line over regular analog circuits are being used. You will start seeing PVR's being offered by the players probably by the end of the year.

There will be another alternative - triple play or quad play providers - BSNL/MTNL. Bharati, Reliance, Tata's. They will offer video services, voice and data services over copper twisted pair, besides of course on mobile (hence quad play). The issue though is we do not have true broadband in our homes at the moment - 256k or even 2Mbps is not enough. You need something in excess of 6mbps to offer true triple play services.

The cable plants - hybrid fibre/coax cable are not in great condition either. But some of them are offering (though not necessarily legaly) voice, data services besides the regular cable services.

An ideal IPTV framework with EPG + VOD + Interactive channels + "Broadband" internet + voice would require around 6 Mbps. None of the current copper twisted pair cables support that kind of bandwidth - even if they say 2Mbps theoritical limit, you know the actual bandwidth. All i can say is - dont expect a whole lot from this packaged offer.. Besides the content to watch needs to be authored to be iteractive, so if it is vanilla linear TV, then my suggestion is just go in for a DTH such as Tatasky + a 512 Mbps internet (still considered broadband only in India) with voice connection on the same line..

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Originally Posted by rangaraj (Post 409042)

All i can say is - dont expect a whole lot from this packaged offer.. Besides the content to watch needs to be authored to be iteractive, so if it is vanilla linear TV, then my suggestion is just go in for a DTH such as Tatasky + a 512 Mbps internet (still considered broadband only in India) with voice connection on the same line..

Tata sky id the current leader when it comes to quality of transmission.
Its after sales support too is said to be better than the other DTH operator, Dish TV.
Hence I agree with rangaraj that tata sky is the best option. For broadband, the government run companies are the best as they offer good service at cheap rates.

It may not be the best currently, but just wait for IPTV (and similar services) to catch on with their infrastructure.

Was watching a demo on NDTV last night, and its capabilities are mind-boggling. What I especially liked is the fact that the service provider records 30 days of television of each and every channel. Meaning you can not only pause / forward / rewind but also see programs at your own time convenience. The video-conferencing was cool too. And the movies on demand are only 5 - 10 bucks a flick!

That plus you get your telephone/tv/internet all in one line.

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Originally Posted by GTO (Post 412185)

I did not see the NDTV program, but IPTV has a distinct advantage of channel switching speed. Data storage is becoming cheaper, and all programming content will be stored in the cloud available as VOD. ADAG (Reliance) has preannounced some details of their IPTV program:
ADAG to foray into broadcasting service
Amrita Nair-Ghaswalla
[ 12 Apr, 2007 1236hrs ISTTIMES NEWS NETWORK ]

MUMBAI: The Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group is all set to unveil Blue Magic, a broadcasting service network that includes IPTV (Internet protocol television), high-speed Internet and VoIP (voice over Internet protocol) in the next couple of days.

While this service is in its final stages, the telecom major is also aiming to make a splash this summer with its broadband connection. The rollout will include Microsoft's IPTV platform.

Also on the anvil is a social networking portal on the lines of Orkut and MySpace. Considered an ideal platform to connect the many Reliance Entertainment ventures - gaming portal Zapak, movie site Adlabs and FM radio BigFM - the charting of the portal is said to be in the initial stages.

The Anil Ambani group has been keen to enter the direct-to-home (DTH) business, and has been laying its fibre optic network across the country. The group, which had got the green signal late last year with the letter of intent (LoI) from the government for its DTH business, decided on the Blue Magic tag to infuse some magic in the crowded marketplace.

In spite of a surfeit of players like the Tata group's Tata Sky, state-owned Doordarshan and Dish TV of the Essel Group, Blue Magic hopes to corner a significant share of the home entertainment pie. The marketing strategies for Blue Magic are expected to be the key differentiator, sources said.

At the moment, MTNL is the only provider of IPTV. Sources indicated that ADAG hopes to home in and score over the first-mover advantage of the former.

IPTV is supplied by a broadband operator and is television content that, instead of being delivered through traditional formats and cabling, is received by the viewer through the technologies used for computer networks. VoIP, on the other hand, is the routing of voice conversations over the Internet or through any other IP-based network.