ITV

Tag: Cable Operators Association

  • Shaji Mathews appointed as Kerala MSO KCCL CEO

    Shaji Mathews appointed as Kerala MSO KCCL CEO

    MUMBAI: From Gujarat, where he helped steer MSO GTPL towards its IPO, he is now headed back to his home city of Kochi in Kerala. Shaji Mathews has been appointed as the CEO of Kerala Communicators Cable Ltd (KCCL), a leading cable TV and broadband network in Kerala which is a consortium of operators who are shareholders and participate in management.

    An initiative of Kerala’s independent cable operators it works under the guidance of the 4,000 member strong Cable Operators Association ( COA), the main objective of which is to develop Kerala’s cable TV sector by building wider networks, upgrading technology, finding new avenues of activity apart from addressing various issues and challenges before the industry for and on behalf of its members.

    The company is led by the chairman Boobacker Siddique and managing director PP Suresh Kumar.

    KCCL’s website states that these cable operators have cumulatively invested Rs 5 billion in equipment, networking, studios and other infrastructure all over Kerala. The cable operators have a consolidated turnover of Rs 2.5 billion per annum. KCCL has a network capacity of 300 SD channels and 60 HD channels, and provides 240 SD channels and 28 HD channels to its two million digital subscribers.

    “KCCL has been one of the front runners in Kerala on digitisation and has received appreciation from the MIB and TRAI as well,” says Mathews. “The network derives huge strength from the dedicated team of operators who have active participation in the management. It is quite similar to the state my previous company GTPL was when I joined it four years back. While KCCL has completed its digitsation, there is a lot of scope in the area of broadband for which Kerala’s citizens have a huge appetite. My objective is to create a similar success story like GTPL with KCCL as it is poised for rapid growth going forward.”

  • HC stays DAS rollout in Ahmedabad; other Phase II cities to follow?

    HC stays DAS rollout in Ahmedabad; other Phase II cities to follow?

    NEW DELHI: Ahmedabad can wait for DAS. That was the decision of the Gujarat High Court which stayed the switching off of analogue signals to beyond 31 March because of the non-availability of digital settop boxes.

    The High Court said Ahmedabadis will have till 9 April for the introduction of digital STBs following a petition filed by Cable Operators Association of Gujarat through its President Pramod Pandya. He said that STBs ordered from China had failed to arrive because of internal problems in that country and therefore the LCOs could not be penalised for this.

    An Information and Broadcasting ministry official confirmed the development in Ahmedabad.

    Sources, however, reveal that a stay on the rollout of DAS had also been granted by the Karnataka High Court till 1 April in Bangalore and Mysore following petitions filed by Karnataka Cable TV Operators Association President V S Patrick Raju and Mysore Cable TV Operators Association.
    However, no confirmation of this development was available to Indiantelevision.com till the time of filing this report.

    Meanwhile, Raju had earlier also raised the issue of who owns the STB that is installed at the home of a subscriber – the customer or the LCO. He had said that there was no clarity over who owns the box.

    “We have also not given any commitment to exchange the box if the customer so wants. In most cases, we are also unable to give the bill for the box as the Multi System Operators (MSOs), which are distributing them, are not giving us any bill. All that is given is the activation bill,” Raju told Indiantelevision.com over the phone from Bangalore.

    However, he said bills are being given to customers who are serviced directly by the MSOs.