India broadband

After Dish TV, Tata Sky, Sun Direct, DD Direct, Big TV, and Airtel Digital TV, it is the turn of Videocon DTH to enter the ever growing market of DTH in India. Although it is in nascent stage, Indian DTH scene, has long way to go to do what cable television has done to India some 10 years ago. And to help it achieve several corporate companies and telecom companies are trying to tap this niche market early.

Thus the latest to enter this DTH scene is Videocon DTH. Yes, you heard it right; the television major, Videocon DTH is going to enter the DTH bandwagon in India. They are going to do it through their own media company Bharat Business Channel. They have very big plans on making the DTH set top boxes very much affordable for all. And instead of charging Rs. 3000 for the set top box, Videocon DTH is going to charge Rs. 1500 only or even lesser or could even offer it for free but with some pre-conditions.

While Big TV and Sun Direct offer their service using MPEG-4 and the others are using only MPEG-2. It will be interesting to know what Videocon DTH has chosen, whether MPEG-2 or MPEG-4. If Videocon D2H is only looking at acquiring new customers and let the customers from other major DTH services like Dish TV or Tata Sky jump to theirs, they should come up with MPEG-4 technology as the most knowledgeable DTH users will now start switching over to it or look for DTH service which offer MPEG4.

Although the market has already been taken over by the old players like Dish and Tata Sky, and the free market taken over by DD Direct and the south market mostly could be handled by Sun Direct, it is indeed will be tough for Videocon D2H to make some inroads into the DTH scene at least in the immediate future.

To add to their woes, Big TV has entered the market some months back and with their very aggressive marketing and offers they are actually becoming one of the top player in Direct To Home services in India. And with the launch of Airtel Digital TV, it will surely not be a very easy task for Videocon to tap the market unless and until they don’t do it the aggressive way or any unique marketing method which will make a big impact on the minds of the DTH consumers to switch over or buy it for the first time.

Instead of taking over the existing customers from other services, it would be far better for Videocon to target the new and yet to switchover to DTH segment to make some inroads in the DTH, as it would be very difficult for existing customers from other D2H Service to make a switch due to reasons like cost and service offered by the other services.

The no expectations created by Videocon DTH may be all be good for them, unlike Big TV where there were huge hype surrounding it even before they launched. Since there is no hype surrounding Videocon DTH, they could utilize this opportunity to make an impact with some very good offer which the customers should think twice to avoid and thus could start their DTH race with a jumpstart advantage.

Airtel DTH : After Tata sky, Dish tv, sun direct dth, DD direct plus and Big tv from Reliance we now have Airte DTH which will be available from tommoros onwards that is 9th of October 2008. Bharti Airtel dth is the second one to launch this year first one being Big tv which was launched a few months ago.

According to a lot of forum members the problems with Big tv is that they still do not have a good customer support infrastructure as oppose to tata sky and dish tv who are very prompt in attending to consumer complaints.

Airtel DTH claims that their dish is about 20% larger then that provided by tata sky and dish tv which will help a lot in keepin their service running when it rains heavily. Tata sky and dish tv and all others are known to loose connection in heavy rains or even heavy clouds but if Airtels claims are to be believed their service will not come to a halt during heavy rains which obviously is very good news as I myself have seen my tata sky go down when it rains heavily here in Delhi.

Airtel DTH has announced that their packages will start from an initial Rs 2499 for North India and in South India from Rs 1499 depending on the language and channels selection. Airtel dth monthly packages are priced from Rs 125 a month to a high or Rs 424. Airtel dth is going to be launched in 62 towns and cities initially and they have already set up 21000 retail outlets which does not include their own Airtel relationship centers where you normally go to pay your airtel mobile bills.

Airtel DTH service does seem to have a brighter future given their massive brand appeal which has over the years only improved be it other companies bad image or Airtels good service but its the gap between the good and the bad which has been increasing. Airtel broadband as you may have already notices is being only made available in certain areas and the company says they are only taking one step at a time so they dont have unsatisfed customers which is a good idea.

Airtel dth is initially offering a total of 175 channels on their dth service which may be increased in future as and when more channels become available.

If you have any queries about Airtel DTH or would like to discuss about Airtel dth please go to Bharti Airtel DTH forum.