ITV

Tag: GK Viswanath

  • Germany’s Panaccess bets big on CAS in India

    Germany’s Panaccess bets big on CAS in India

    KOLKATA: Panaccess, a German-headquartered company for CAS, SMS, billing and VoD, aims to promote CAS in India. The company is not only betting on business from the remaining phases i.e. III and IV, but is also approaching the multi-system operators (MSOs) in phase I and II.

     

    “There is good scope for CAS, SMS and billing in the next phases. And a few existing clients want to replace with our CAS and hence, we are approaching the MSOs in phase I and II along with newer ones,” informs Panaccess sales consultant GK Viswanath.

     

    “We have commissioned our conditional access system, subscriber management system and billing for a MSO in Pondicherry,” he answers, when asked about the work executed in the country.

     

    The company, which is slated to open a service centre in Bengaluru by April 2015, has already established its products and services in 32 countries across the world. It serves as a single window for a set of secured and revenue protected suite of solutions that complements and adds revenue streams to existing and new cable TV and DTH operations.

     

    After April, the company will start visiting all the major MSOs and plans to advertise a lot more as well. “We participate in all the major cable TV exhibitions etc,” he states.

     

    On the problems MSOs face with existing CAS system, he says, “They can resolve the problems by replacing with our CAS i.e. SMS and billing which are built in. Hence, there is no need for MSOs to go any anywhere else for these facilities. Apart from this, we also provide with solutions through broadband services.”

     

    In the coming months, the company, which currently employees around 15 people in the country, plans to recruit a few more.  “Next fiscal will see at least 10 for sales and 15 for technical and five for backend and five demonstrator appointments,” he says.

     

    On the extended deadline of cable TV digitisation in India from 2014 to 2016, he comments, “There are some people who had already started manufacturing STBs indigenously; they are the ones which have been affected by this decision.”

     

    “We can coordinate with the MSOs those who are planning to go for headends or STBs. We hope to capitalise the market early,” he concludes.

     

  • Kolkata MSOs come together to address ground issues

    Kolkata MSOs come together to address ground issues

    KOLKATA: The multi-system operators (MSOs) alliance operating in the Kolkata Municipal (KM) Area plan to form a team comprising two members from each service provider. Since the billing process hasn’t kicked off the way it should have, the team would meet this week to discuss issues like billing, collection, disputes among operators among others.

     

    If the effort of this alliance fails, an external agency may be brought on board to sort the issues troubling the group.

     

    “First we will like to solve the issues through our team. We will consider a third party only if we fail to address them. The team comprising of decision makers and seniors would be formed this week,” said Siticable director Suresh Sethia.

     

    Another MSO brought to the fore the issues they come across while collecting subscription fee from operators like they bring up issues related to under billing, area disputes among others, etc. “But on many occasions we have found that the last mile operators (LMOs) are complaining unnecessarily. Our team will go to assess the situation and address it,” he said.

     

    “We are talking in order to work together in improving the ground,” said Advance Multisystem Broadband Communication (AMBC) managing director Sujit Das.

     

    To implement the gross (consumer) billing for the month of January and bring transparency in the process, the MSOs are meeting regularly and discussing its smooth rollout. “Billing is a mess as LCOs are not willing to collect,” said Corpus Media Labs head sales GK Viswanath.