Category: Software

MUMBAI: Of the three metros, Mumbai leads in Cas (conditional access system) adoption with a 25 per cent penetration in set-top boxes (STBs), according to a study by Tam.

While Mumbai has 139000 subscribers buying STBs on a Cas home of 548000, Delhi has a 14 per cent penetration with 97000 out of 676000 homes opting for boxes.

Kolkata is a clear laggard with a 10 per cent penetration, indicating significant differences in offtake across the three metros. Out of 409000 homes, 41000 subscribers have gone ahead and bought boxes.

“Of the 1.63 million homes covered by the Cas footprint, 277000 homes had taken up a STB/DTH connection to access pay channels. Pay TV homes amounted to 17 per cent of the Cas-mandated area,” the study said.

In the first week of January, Tam commissioned AC Nielsen to conduct a ‘Pay TV Homes’ estimation study in the Cas-mandated zones of Mumbai, Delhi and Kolkata. The fieldwork periods were 12-16 January in Mumbai, 11-15 January in Delhi and 11-16 January in Kolkata. The fieldwork mid-point was 14 January, Tam said.

Tam further divided the zones into 100 sampling nodes, ensuring “adequate geographical coverage.” It conducted face-to-face interviews using a structured questionnaire. The interviewee was the decision maker pertaining to cable subscription. The sample size was 2250 respondents (750 per city).

According to the study, an additional 198000 homes claimed to have subscribed but are awaiting installation of ‘pay TV services.’The ‘under served’ segments included 109000 (20 per cent awaiting installations) in Mumbai, 43000 (6 per cent) in Delhi and 46000 (11 per cent) in Kolkata.

“Cumulatively, 475000 homes had subscribed comprising 29 per cent of the Cas-mandated homes,” the study said.

There are 7.96 million cable homes across the three metros with 1.63 million (approximately 21 per cent) falling under the Cas-mandated zones. Mumbai has 3.25 million cable homes while in Delhi it is 2.61 million and in Kolkata 2.1 million.

The highest offtake for the boxes is in the SEC A strata of Mumbai. Interestingly, the response by Mumbai‘s SEC C is nearly on par with those from SEC A residing in Delhi and Kolkata There is zero demand from SEC D/E in Kolkata. “The offtake levels vary significantly across markets even at a SEC level. The highest offtake is observed in the higher SEC and it declines as one comes down the SEC ladder. Owing to the pre-dominant non-responsive lower SEC, the offtakes seem to have got dampened significantly,” the study pointed out.

Despite low offtake in Kolkata, consumer awareness appeared to be higher than in Delhi and Mumbai. Consumers residing in Delhi appeared to be the least aware.

While consumer awareness has significant ground to cover, price remained the pre-dominant reason for subscribers preferring to decide in favour of free-to-air (FTA) channels.

MUMBAI: Cable operators dry of cash for digital implementation can now look forward to Cisco Systems, Inc. The global networking equipment and network management giant is willing to finance cable operators in India as it sees opportunity in riding the digital cable wave to push its set-top boxes (STBs).

There is a catch, though: operators will have access to the loan only if they use STBs from Scientific Atlanta, the company that Cisco acquired to bulk up on businesses that cater to consumers.

The debt will be provided through its wholly owned subsidiary company, Cisco Capital.

Cisco has approached several small and medium-sized operators in the Cas (conditional access system) areas, offering a variety of financing options. “We are willing to provide soft loans to cable operators which can be paid over a period of time. This way we can push our digital end-to-end solutions including headend, encryption system and boxes,” says a source in the company.

The loan size will depend upon the credit worthiness of the operator and the funding will be made available in phases. “We won‘t be funding the cable network in one go, but infuse it in several doses,” says the source.

Cisco realises how tough it will be to evaluate the health of the cable networks. “Most of them do not have proper documents and it is difficult to rate their creditworthiness,” the source adds.

Among the cable operators Cisco has initiated talks are Kolkata-based Manthan and JPR Network, an independent operator in Mumbai. But there are no takers yet.

“We are more interested in equity than in debt. As we will have to subsidise the STBs, it will be very difficult to recover and repay the loan. The average revenue per user (ARPU) from Cas subscribers is also low. Besides, Scientific Atlanta boxes are more expensive than what is available in China and Korea,” says JPR Network promoter Raja Nadar.

Cisco, however, believes its end-to-end digital solutions and the pressure cable operators face to put quality infrastructure in place will drive in good business. “There is just a 20 per cent difference between what we provide and what others are offering. But we have a better system and bridge an end-to-end requirement,” the source says.

Rajan Raheja-promoted Hathway Cable & Datacom and Asianet are using the Scientific Atlanta headend, STBs and encryption system, the source adds. Hathway, in which Star has a 26 per cent stake, already has seeded Humax STBs and uses News Corp-owned NDS encryption systems.

For Hathway, Scientific Atlanta is going to be a second supply vendor as the market for digital cable expands.

Cisco acquired Scientific Atlanta so that it could tap the rapidly growing cable, satellite and IPTV markets across the world.

MUMBAI: The New Media Group (TNMG) and Taj Television, which owns sports channel Ten Sports, have formed a partnership.

TNMG will distribute and market Taj Television‘s assets to users in Japan and Korea.

TNMG president Randy McGraw says, “We have been really impressed with the content that Ten Sports is producing, the company’s management, and its direction.

“This strategic tie-up goes a long way toward our mission of establishing the preeminent IPTV and sports community management portal for the growing number of people that are under-serviced by legacy broadcasting, DTH and CATV systems in the markets where they live. We are happy to be working with Taj Television.”

Under the agreement between companies, TNMG will distribute Ten Sports to a community of 200,000 South East Asian and Subcontinent community members living and working in Japan and Korea. Taking advantage of the regions broadband and 3G mobile infrastructure, TNMG will work with Taj Television Limited initially on TV offerings, and will eventually will develop offerings for consumption on TV, PC, and mobile phones.

TNMG says that it will give its viewers the World On-Demand, and we are happy to have this solution. South Asians all over Asia will now be able to watch cricket, football, hockey, tennis, and see their favorite players and home teams doing it.

The two companies will eventually collaborate on new, interactive offerings for consumers of Ten Sports’ content.

The companies began services in Japan and other East Asian markets in December, 2006.

MUMBAI: UK pay TV service provider Sky is developing plans for the launch of a subscription television service on digital terrestrial television (DTT) this year.

The new service will allow programmes – including sport and movies – through a conventional rooftop aerial and a DTT box for a monthly subscription. By bringing back pay-TV content to the DTT platform, Sky aims to create more choice for customers who are interested in upgrading from free-to-air to pay-TV. This the firm says represents an attractive commercial opportunity, benefitting from existing investments in programming and infrastructure, and attracting new customers to Sky over and above current plans for the growth of Sky‘s satellite service.

The line-up of channels on the new service will offer a range of content including sports, movies, entertainment and news. The sports service will include live coverage from the Barclays Premiership and other events. Full details, including branding, pricing and the complete channel line-up, will be revealed closer to launch.The new service will make use of existing capacity that Sky currently uses to broadcast Sky Three, Sky News and Sky Sports News. As a result, these channels will cease to be available free-to-air via DTT in advance of the launch of the pay-TV service.Sky plans to broadcast its pay-TV channels on DTT using the more efficient MPEG4 compression technology, bringing innovation to the platform and enabling Sky to offer four 24-hour video streams in place of the three Sky channels currently available, with further improvements expected in future. The pay-TV service will use a highly secure conditional access (CA) system similar to the one that Sky uses for its satellite television service.

To access the service, customers will buy a new set-top box that includes the relevant CA software and MPEG4 decoder. It is anticipated that once the service launches multiple manufacturers will have the opportunity to produce compatible set-top-boxes and other DTT receivers.The launch of the new service is subject to approval by Ofcom of the necessary variations to licences held by Sky and National Grid Wireless, which provides DTT transmission and multiplexing services to Sky. Sky COO Mike Darcey said, ” We look forward to bringing some of Sky‘s most popular content to digital terrestrial viewers. This will give families more choice and increase the availability of leading content and channel brands.”

MUMBAI: While the first phase of Cas (conditional access system) rolled out on 1 January, the Indian cable TV industry is now looking at headends outside these areas in smaller cities and towns which are now keen to transition to an era of structured organizations and revenues that digital cable provides.

Several large cable TV headends countrywide now plan to install digital headends.These new headends require a complete technology shift To facilitate the transition, Satellite and Cable TV magazine is organizing a workshop on “Cas and digital CATV” at the Hyatt, Sahar International Airport, Mumbai on 12 and 13 February.

The workshop will have a round table discussion on Cas roll out by WWIL MD Jagjit Singh Kohli, Hathway Cable & Datacom MD and CEO K Jayaraman, Incablenet head Ravi Mansukhani and Trai representatives.

Additional sessions will have international speakers from SIMAC Netherlands, Teleste Finland, Rover Italy, Telemann Korea as well as leading industry players such as NDS, Magnaquest, Catvision and others.

MUMBAI: Hungama Mobile in association with T-Series launched the Kar Le kar Le Koi Dhamaal music for mobile. This is the first time in Asia that the music will be available for downloading on mobile before it is available in music stores.

Several other add on features like ‘Full Music‘ monophonic ringtones, polytones, ringback tones wallpaper will also be available, suitable for every type of mobile phones.

The star at the launch of the music was ofcourse Shah Rukh Khan who has performed in the music video. Talking about the product he said, “When I personally downloaded the music it was a great experience hearing it on my own phone. Hungama Mobile is providing a new platform by giving a new experience to the audience. The Gen X is definitely going to be excited with such exciting features and I can say now mobile will be the next new destination, for music.”

Hungama Mobile managing director and CEO Neeraj Roy said, “We sincerely appreciate the support of Shahrukh, who in his own way encouraged this step. Experiencing the success and looking at the potential in mobile content market, we are delighted to partner with T-series. Through this initiative we can reach out to a vast audience across the globe.”

Speaking on the occasion T-Series managing director .Bhushan Kumar said, “Considering our long association with Hungama Mobile, we are delighted to take it one step further for the mobile content industry. Seeing the success of previous projects like the Krrish, added to which this time we have SRK himself. This combination makes us confident of this initiative being a great success!”

Hungama Mobile also owns Bollywood portal, www.indiafm.com and has worked on over 1000 films on the mobile and the online space.

To download the music one can SMS SRK to 4646 and it will be made available through Hungama Mobile distribution network with over 77 Wireless Carriers in 30 plus countries.

Hungama Mobile has exclusive worldwide rights to India‘s largest music label T-Series and in addition has over 100 content alliances with companies as diverse as Warner Bros, Sony Pictures etc.

NEW DELHI: The All India Radio digitalisation programme may not be complete by 2015 due to shortage of funds, says AIR engineer-in-chief AS Guin.

The Short Wave bands will be digitalised first and this can be achieved by 2015, provided the Planning Commission releases the entire amount, but medium wave “which is the poor man‘s band” will not be fully digitalised and more specifically, there will not be complete switch off from analogue to digital radio, Guin explains.

The AIR has asked for Rs 59 billion from the Commission under the 11th Five Year Plan. They feel the amount is huge, and the government may not be able to release the entire fund. To go for complete digitalisation would take much more funds – almost astronomical – and AIR mandarins feel that they should not ask for the moon, which is why no further plans are afoot for asking for more funds.

Short wave transmitters that have been in use for more than 20 years will be replaced and these alone would be DRM compatible, not all.

“But in any case, we shall not switch off the analogue mode for the medium wave by 2015, because that is the wave compatible with the radios costing Rs 50 or 100, the one used by the poorer section of the society. They will not be able to bear the cost, so we cannot deny them the only source of information and entertainment some of them have,” Guin stressed.

In fact, as of date even the fairly well-to-do would not be able, or may not wish to spend money buying a digital radio set.

“The ones available cost in today‘s prices about $70, that is Rs 3,500,” Guin revealed, adding: “This is prohibitively costly.”

So why bring in a technology that even the well-off may not opt for?

“It is expected the prices will come down as we go by,” he averred. There are two factors at play here.

First, as and when DRM technology goes national, prices will come down. “As of now, most countries are using DRM technology for SW for their external broadcasting. National lever SW DRM tests have been conducted in Mexico and other places,” Guin said. But when DRM goes national, the price will come down.

The other factor is that as the new digital mode becomes popular, the prices of the sets would also come down.

“The main thing will be the content,” Guin said. The content for SW and MW have to be different, because if the same content is run on both, why would anyone buy a costly handset to catch SW?” he asks.

There have to be popular programmes specially developed for SW bands, he felt, otherwise the digital radio programme will not pick up in good earnest.

The digitalisation process would start with all the studios. Each state capital would have one Short Wave transmitter and there will be three transmission complexes with five transmitters per complex for national digital radio coverage.

These complexes will be suitably located., Each complex will transmit five digital channels across the country, including regional language channels. This will mean that these channels will be accessible across the country. So, a Bengali in Mumbai would not have a problem if he wishes to hear All India Radio Kolkata.

Explaining the merits of such a costly technology, Guin said that interactive broadcasts and a number of value-added services will be possible. One of the most important things will be the pro-active role AIR will get to play in disaster management.

AIR will introduce a system across the channels on the coastal belts, which will be integrated with the early warning systems.

Thus, whenever an early warning is triggered off the computer linkage with the radio stations will ensure that the channel would automatically switch over to transmitting the warning, with the ongoing programme switched off.

Once the warning has been issued, the radio station would switch over to the normal ongoing programme. This will give a huge lead time for people to evacuate.

MUMBAI: RPG Cellucom, a part of RPG group retail sector has made a quiet entry into the growing mobile and IT products retail market in India.

An official press release, RPG Cellucom has developed a distinctive retail concept directed at engaging the consumer and expanding their knowledge of mobile technology.

SRPG Cellucom has also made a quiet entry with the launch of its retail outlet in Gurgaon. The company plans to open over 500 exclusive retail outlets by end 2007. The retail outlets will be in stand-alone as well as shop in shop formats. The chain recently opened its first stand-alone outlet in Sahara Mall, Gurgaon and has identified several other properties in the capital to expand the retail chain. Through phased expansion, RPG Cellucom aims to cash on the growing mobile and IT products market in India. The company has opened its shop-in-shop format at Shopper‘s Stop in Mumbai and Spencer‘s in Pune.

ERPG Cellucom outlets will showcase a wide variety of mobility products in the communication space from leading brands like Nokia, Motorola, Acer, HP, Samsung and Sony Ericsson amongst others. The retail outlets will offer customers a wide range of hi-tech and state of the art technology products ranging from mobile phones, laptops, accessories, pen drives and various other IT peripherals. In addition to showcasing these products, RPG Cellucom retail outlets will also offer customers after sales service and exclusive product demonstrations. Says RPG Cellucom CEO Sunil Bhagat “RPG Cellucom stores are a one stop shop for all techno-savvy customers. Along with providing the customer with a wide range of IT and communication products from different brands, we also provide them with after sales services and product demos at our exclusive showrooms across the country. So now the customers will not have to run around the city to make choices.” Cellucom was set up as an exporter of leading mobile phone brands, with operations in Dubai and East Africa. Today, thanks to the keen attention and rapid response to the customer‘s needs, the company has evolved to become one of the largest distributors of digital devices and mobility solutions in the Middle East and Africa region.

MUMBAI: Samsung Telecommunications India Ltd. announced the launch of its range of secured phones SGH-C140, SGH-X520 and SGH-E250 in India. The technology boasts revolutionary security features like mobile tracker, emergency SMS and privacy lock in slider, clamshell and bar form factors, these phones transcends the current market offering by empowering consumer‘s security during mobility.

Mobile Tracker helps consumers to track their lost phone. Emergency SMS acts as personal bodyguard and alerts close relatives or friends about his distress or emergency situations. Privacy lock protects the data, photos, voice memo, multimedia messages, images and sound stored in the phone from intrusion.

Speaking on this occasion Samsung Telecommunications India managing director Ryu Hyun Chul said, “Close to 50 million worth of mobile phones are lost or stolen annually. Our personal experience shows that when we lose our phone we just buy the new one. We don‘t know how to track our lost phone. We are also not aware what will happen, if these lost or stolen phones fall into wrong hands.”

MUMBAI: Games publishing company, Jump Games has acquired exclusive mobile gaming rights for the Fido Dido, aerated drink 7 Up‘s brand mascot.

Jump Games has signed a two-year worldwide contract with Honest Entertainment to create and distribute mobile game titles based on Fido Dido across the world.

The game features Fido Dido in his cool avatar that has to brave all hurdles to reach as far ahead in the game as possible. Fido‘s journey is made exciting with loads of zany powerups and bonuses for sporting his cool factor. The first Mobile game Fido Dido is ready for release and will soon be out on leading networks worldwide, states an official release.

Speaking about the license, Jump Games CEO Salil Bhargava said, “Fido Dido is a name well-known all over the world. Fido‘s character has a lot of fun associated with it, which can be spun around to develop exciting titles. Our first arcade game is going to be out shortly and we‘re on our way to creating a few more games including a 3D Fido Bowling title. We look forward to a valuable relationship with Honest Entertainment and Fido in developing some remarkable Mobile content.”