DTH
MTNL launches value add service ‘Broadband with Wi-Fi’
MUMBAI: MTNL has introduced a value add to its broadband services with ‘Broadband with Wi-Fi’. These Wi-Fi services are enabled with CPE’s (Customer Premises Equipment) which have a speed of up to 2 mbps.Using these CPE’s, subscribers will now be able to create their ‘private hot spots’ covering a range of 40 meters in their homes and offices. They can also create “Private public hot spots” through MTNL’s
pre paid broadband service.
Speaking on the occasion MTNL executive director A.K. Arora said, “Broadband with Wi-Fi is an initiative to create ease and comfort for our consumers while at home or work. Broadband MTNL’s contribution aims to help increase internet penetration and its usage will be significantly driven by these kind of services”.
Broadband with Wi-Fi will bring convenience to consumers to the level that multiple computers, laptops and PDAs can operate simultaneously. This will help household consumers who have more than one device at their residence.
This facet will also help educational institutions such as Engineering, Management, Medical and Research Institutes to save cost and provide better work as well as learning environment.
Convention centers like auditoriums, conference halls, seminar rooms can also be helped through this connection by providing better service and in turn they will be able to enhance their turnover. With broadband Wi-Fi one can access the Internet anywhere and so café’s restaurants and shopping malls can be converted into infotainment zones.
The Wi-Fi modem works on the latest version 802.11g of Wi-Fi standard and working in unlicensed 2.4 GHz band. It generally provides bandwidth of 54Mbps. The concurrent users can be upto 30. The Wi-Fi modem shall have a range of 40 meter indoor & 60 meter outdoor range. The range varies with
obstacles between Wi-Fi modem and laptop/PC/PDA. With above facilities of modem, one can create Hot spot in each house or corporate. The two types of modem used will be USB and Ethernet port or with 4 Ethernet ports.
Currently MTNL provides Wi-Fi services at domestic airport, India Habitat Center, Pragati Maidan, Vigyan Bhavan, UPSC, Election Commission, IIPA, and Delhi Government etc.
The customers can get this service by dialing 1500 or 22221500.
DTH
Prasar Bharati’s WAVES earns Rs 2.9 crore in first year
Platform scales content, users but monetisation gaps limit revenue growth.
MUMBAI: Big waves, small ripples at least for now. When Prasar Bharati launched its OTT platform WAVES at the 55th International Film Festival of India in November 2024, it pitched a bold vision: a homegrown rival to global and domestic streaming giants, blending video, audio, gaming and commerce into a single digital ecosystem. Five months into FY2024–25, however, the platform’s revenue stands at just Rs 2.90 crore, a figure that underscores the gap between ambition and monetisation.
On paper, WAVES looks anything but modest. The platform has ingested 13,608 titles, totalling 9,495 hours of content, with over 13,000 titles already live. It has streamed more than 575 live events from the Mahakumbh Amrit Snan and the 76th Republic Day parade to the Hockey India League, Kabaddi World Cup and Mann Ki Baat while offering 74 live TV channels and 12 radio channels. With over 10 lakh registered users and more than 200 content partners onboarded, the scale resembles that of a fully operational streaming service rather than a pilot project.
The architecture supporting this scale is equally robust. Built under Prasar Bharati’s Central Archives vertical, WAVES runs on a cloud-based infrastructure with DRM, encryption and an integrated analytics dashboard. It includes dedicated units for content ingestion, quality control, publishing, graphics, marketing and billing, and is distributed across platforms such as OTTplay, Tata Play and BSNL. The offering extends beyond video to include audio-on-demand, e-games and even e-commerce via ONDC integration.
Yet, the numbers reveal a core disconnect. Despite its scale, WAVES generated just Rs 2.90 crore in a market where India’s OTT industry crossed Rs 23,000 crore in 2024. A key bottleneck lies in monetisation infrastructure: subscriptions cannot currently be purchased within the app and must be completed via an external website. In a mobile-first country where over 95 per cent of OTT consumption happens on smartphones, this extra step creates friction that most users are unlikely to overcome.
Ironically, content is not the problem, it is the platform’s biggest strength. Prasar Bharati holds one of the world’s richest broadcast archives, including 45,154 hours of digitised Akashvani programming and 35,723 hours from Doordarshan. For WAVES alone, over 3,800 hours of archival content have been made OTT-ready, including classics such as Ramayan and Shaktimaan, alongside rare cultural recordings and historical broadcasts.
There are early signs that this library holds commercial potential. Revenue from archival content licensing rose sharply to Rs 3.38 crore in FY24, up from Rs 67 lakh the previous year. Meanwhile, free digital platforms continue to drive massive reach, the PB Archives Youtube channel clocked 119.78 million views and added 4,02,000 subscribers in FY2024–25, crossing 1.7 million in total, while DD News has over 5.84 million subscribers.
That, however, presents a strategic dilemma. While free distribution builds scale, it also conditions audiences to expect content at zero cost making it harder to transition to paid models. WAVES, designed as a hybrid AVOD-SVOD platform with advertising and subscription layers, is yet to fully crack this balance.
The broader challenge is not technological but strategic. In an ecosystem dominated by platforms offering seamless payments, aggressive pricing and high-budget originals, WAVES is still bridging the gap between being a content repository and a commercially viable product.
For now, the platform reflects both promise and paradox. It has the scale, the content and the infrastructure but until monetisation catches up, WAVES remains less a revenue engine and more a digital showcase of what India’s public broadcaster could become.
