Discussions / White Papers
Highlights
Government of India is determined to implement CAS.
Government of India is involving local administration, including police
force for smooth implementation
Government of India supports the fact that as per law, no content
provider can deny content to any distribution platform
Siticable Network Limited has around 170,000 set top boxes available for
distribution. 7,000 boxes have already been deployed
Consumer friendly schemes being offered by Siticable and other MSOs
Mumbai, India; August 21, 2003:
The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Government of India has notified that the three metros of Mumbai, Kolkata and Delhi would be divided into four zones each for smooth implementation of CAS, while Chennai would be covered as a single zone. Implementation of CAS would be mandatory in Zone 1 from 1st September 2003. Dates for other zones will be notified in due course. Zee Telefilms Limited (Zee) is confident of reinforcing its leadership position in the distribution business in India.
Siticable Network Limited, a wholly owned subsidiary of Zee has launched its digital head-end in the sky (HITS) project for distributing television broadcast signals in the CAS regime. The HITS is already operational and digital set top boxes (boxes) have already started rolling out in the notified areas of the metros. More than 70,000 boxes are available for distribution and 100,000 boxes are ready for shipment. At present, Siticable is conducting roadshows to educate and inform consumers of the boxes, while 7,000 boxes have already been deployed.
Siticable has installed all the equipment and has completed bulk of the capital expenditure required. It has obtained permission from the Government of India to turnaround all channels presently available on cable, for distributing through the HITS.
Present Status
The Government has formed an Implementation Committee under the chairmanship of Additional Secretary, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting. The committee has representatives from Zee, Star, Sony, Siticable, Hathaway, Incable, RPG, and independent cable operators. There have been two meetings of the Implementation Committee to discuss the issues of revenue sharing and smooth rollout as per the deadline. During the first meeting, it was agreed by the Committee that broadcasters would be declaring the maximum retail price of the their channels.
In the second meeting, it was communicated to the members that Government is going to be aggressively pursuing CAS rollout. It was conveyed that advertisement campaigns would start from middle of August in leading newspapers, in the four metros where CAS is to be implemented. Accordingly, the first advertisement has appeared in leading newspapers on 21st August 2003. State administration; including police officers in these cities have been nominated to monitor the roll out the CAS.
So far, there have been two meetings of the I&B Ministry officials with the State representatives of Delhi Government in which the Deputy Collectors of the CAS zone and the Commissioner Excise participated with the Major MSOs and independent cable operators. Steps were initiated to ensure that there is no hardship to consumers on the appointed date because of lack of availability of boxes, and guidelines were declared to ensure that there is no hoarding of boxes by anyone.
The Ministry is further advising the state government representatives that they should meet the resident welfare bodies of different localities and involve the local law enforcing agencies so that the rollout is smooth and consumers have adequate information on availability and pricing of the boxes. With the current initiatives being taken by the Ministry of I&B, implementation of CAS in Zone 1 is going to be on schedule. The Ministry is now looking at the possibility of bringing out an ordinance stipulating that no content provider can deny its content to particular distribution platforms.
Preparedness of the MSOs
Siticable has already launched its digital HITS signals, which have been operational for more than a month and all the headends of Siticable are geared up with transmodulators to pass on the signals. Many independent cable operators have also installed the transmodulators, as they were not able to install the independent conditional access systems. Siticable has signed more than 400 cable operators for the HITS platform.
The availability of reasonable number of set top boxes has been ensured with continuous supply of boxes from the manufacturer M/S Handan Broadinfo, Korea. The CAS platform from Conax has been installed and fully tested, and the SMS has also been installed. Siticable has also implemented the electronic programme guides (EPG) on its system.
Siticable has been aggressively educating consumers on the benefits of the digital box and has been holding extensive roadshows. Consumers have shown keen interest and enquires solicited have shown that people are willing to take the box. Presentations and demonstrations have been made in schools and we have received an encouraging response on the same.
The discussions among broadcasters have been going on for some time now. A detailed meeting was held with Sony in the second week of August, where considerable progress has been made. As per a quote of Mr. Kunal Dasgupta in Business Standard "We are right now in negotiations with Zee. If we strike the right deal we will go ahead with it". Discussions have taken place with ESPN also and the technical team of ESPN has evaluated the facilities of Siticable and has given a positive response. The commercial arrangements are being worked out and we are confident that by the appointed date, the content will be available on the platform.
Consumer friendly Scheme
Digital set top boxes from Siticable, which are being sold under the brand name 'Galaxzee' are available at a price of Rs 2,990. Siticable has a tie-up United Bank of India to make the boxes available to consumers on easy installments. Consumers can get the set top box after paying an upfront deposit of RS 660 along with easy monthly installments of RS 84, spread over 36 months. Consumers have shown keen interest in this scheme.
Status on the DTH
The transmission of the DTH facility has been successfully tested with the first signals of the Ku band transmit side being successfully uplinked. The system now goes under full calibration and fine-tuning and will be ready for launch by mid September. It has a capability of 48 channels.
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