IPTV Spreads its Footprint
By Pankaj Maru
Mumbai, Mar 25, 2008

The growing popularity of mobile phones has seen a major drop in landline subscribers of government owned telecom enterprises, Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited (MTNL) and Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL).

However, this scenario may change, if the IPTV (Internet Protocol TV) and Video Phone Calling - V Spyk services of MTNL in Mumbai get the response that the government-owned telecom major is expecting. MTNL has 4 million subscribers in Mumbai and Delhi.

MTNL has tied up with Aksh Optifibre Limited and UT Starcom to offer the IPTV service on its broadband connections. "Under this new service, the MTNL subscribers will get the bundle of services including IPTV, Video Phone Calling, broadband and normal telephone at a cost of Rs.499 per month including the set top box and modem," informed J Gopal, executive director of MTNL, Mumbai.

"IPTV has the potential to do to India, what internet has done to USA. It is Interactive Personalized TV and not Internet Protocol TV. It works on the business model of low inventory and low investment," said Dr. K S Choudhari, managing director of Aksh Optifibre Limited.

In addition to this new service, MTNL will launch 2 HD (high definition) TV channels in the two metros of New Delhi and Mumbai. In terms of IPTV service, the subscribers will get 102 entertainment channels, video on demand with feature of Time Shift TV, interactive video classifieds and shopping.

"With the video on demand, the viewer can watch a select movie for a day (24hrs) as per his convenience, where he can rewind or forward the scene, song or entire movie that's not available on cable or DTH service," explained Choudhari.

"In addition, there's Time Shift TV that allows watching any TV serial episode that has been broadcasted within the past 3 days. Under the video classified there's A Tube and A Shop, which allows watching of classifieds in video formats. And the A Shop helps to do shopping," added Choudhari.

However, the quality of video and voice clarity will depend on the availability of Internet speed, warn experts. "Frustrated with the cable TV and DTH service, IPTV provides a good option to people with variety of contents and channels. It's still in the infancy state with over looping of TV and Internet. Globally, there are less then 2 million IPTV users," informed David King, senior vice president (International Sales and Marketing) of UT Starcom, the company that provided the hardware infrastructure for the project.


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