|
Said
Amitabh Kumar, President Technology, Zee
Network, Dish TV India: "Since the
launch of Dish TV in 2003, today we have
DD Direct and Tata Sky with a total of about
5 Million subscribers. It is estimated that
the subscriber base will grow to 30 million
by 2015. DTH is not a simple business. It
has built an ecosystem of 300,000 people
involved in support and maintenance, and
350 reseller and distributors. These are
the big drivers to the market. We have to
protect and nourish our ecosystems and cannot
allow it wither away."
Kumar
also called for the services providers to
move to the next level. With Reliance, Bharti
and Videocon ready to launch their services
it is important to focus on sharing and
using satellite capacity. "We need
to have back up satellites to ensure there
is no down time of services to customers.
India being very regional with multiple
languages, we will soon be offering over
200 channels. We need to move towards a
constellation of satellites to offer different
services and have a dedicated satellite
for HDTV, Mobile TV, Standard TV, Games,
and Video on Demand. We need the support
of regulatory authorities and resources
of our country to make it a reality. Isro,
with more satellites planned will enable
the industry to meet its demand."
Isro
has big plans already on the anvil for future
satellites that will give more transponders
for DTH transmission. The Inast-4A launched
in December 2005, is being followed by the
4B, 4C, 4D and 4E. According to Industry
estimates the DTH market is expected to
grow from the present 5 million house holds
to 30 Million by 2015.
India
has 85 million television households with
more than 44 million of them with access
to cable, India presents a whole host of
unique challenges, meeting which will determine
the success of DTH.
A
Bhaskarnarayana, director, SCPO, Isro said,
"65 per cent of the satellite capacity
is used for Cable TV and DTH and 35 per
cent for providing other services. The technology
and delivery of content is moving from analog
to digital and thus increasing the need
for larger bandwidth. We are already in
the final process of using Mpeg4 compression
technology to create more bandwidth to ensure
increase demand is met for DTH, HDTV, Disaster
Recovery, Back haul cell phone services,
Digital Cinema and IPTV. While it is looking
good for satellite based delivery of entertainment
and day to day needs, fiber technology will
give a good fight."
Dr
Eugene Cacciamani, CTO, Protostar, said,
"DTH will be a dominant force in the
Asian region. As the service matures and
more subscribers are added, cost of subscription
will reduce both at installation levels
and cost per channel. Integration of new
secure services will deliver new issues
to deal with as we move along." The
company plans to launch two satellites Pro-Star
1 and Pro-Star 2 by end of 2008 and 2009
respectively to cater to the Asia region,
Speaking
on the occasion, James F Mitchell, director,
strategic planning, sales & marketing,
The Boeing Company, which has over 75 satellites
orbiting the earth providing bandwidth and
quality services said, "For DTH to
become successful, the service providers
have to focus on increasing the revenue
per user by using new technology and offering
value-add services. Companies that can adopt
new technologies smartly will be the leader
in this space."
|
