Sun TV's Sun Direct is eyeing to capture a majority of subscribers riding on its brand presence, language-specific bouquets, and attractive pricing. The company plans to launch its services early next year.

A Reason to Smile
But, there is something that new DTH players can smile about. The successful launch of INSAT-4CR, which carries twelve high-power Ku-band transponders, designed to provide DTH television services, video picture transmission (VPT), and digital satellite news gathering is a boon for them. The lack of enough transponders for DTH operations was a major headache for existing players as well as new players to expand and launch their services, respectively. This launch will accelerate their expansion.

Ku-band transmission will provide coverage in all uncovered areas including remote, border, tribal, hilly and inaccessible areas in one go within a short time. With this coverage, the national broadcaster proposes to meet its obligation of covering the whole nation and its people not only with national channels, but also make available popular Doordarshan and some other free-to-air channels on its platform. In order to meet its obligations, it has also been decided that 10,000 receive systems (Dish and Set Top Box) would be provided free of cost at public institutions like Anganwadis, Schools, Public Health Centres, Panchayats, Youth Clubs, Cooperative Societies etc. in the uncovered areas.

New entrants in the DTH space will also have to keep in mind the latest TRAI regulation for Direct to Home Broadcasting Services to protect the interest of DTH subscribers. DTH operators now cannot disable the set-top boxes of subscribers who want to discontinue the DTH service. This new regulation will also prohibit changing the scheme that is running at the time, frequently. The operators will have to continue the scheme for at least a six-month period, and also inform their customers well before making changes. Another guideline is that DTH operators have to establish toll free call centers with sufficient capacity to handle call loads, and solve customer problems within five days of complaining and all billing complaints within seven days. This regulation will be known as 'quality of service and redressal of grievances regulation, 2007 and will be implemented from December 1, 2007.

As and when this regulation is implemented, old and new DTH players will be on their toes as they cannot now force a customer to choose a package against one's wishes; operators will have to provide packages based on the customer's demand. TRAI has also made it clear that subscribers are free to discontinue the service and operators will have to refund money for DTH equipment charged at the time of installation. Besides this, customers will be free to move on to rival service providers for better service at lower costs. Hence, the entire strategy on which new DTH players will be able to hold ground would depend on pricing and distribution.

On the new players front, only those players who will offer customer friendly pricing and good quality of service (QoS) will be able to survive the cut-throat competition in the DTH space. It will be beneficial for them to absorb the fact that the customer will be king.

Sandeep Budki
sandeepb@cybermedia.co.in

Page(s)   1  2