MUMBAI: Thaicom, one of Asia’s leading satellite operators, announced that its Thaicom 7 satellite is fully booked following an order from Grant Investrade Ltd (GIL).
GIL. a subsidiary of Hinduja Ventures Ltd, confirmed the order for the C-band transponders on the satellite, which it will use to provide digital cable TV services through its Headend-In-The-Sky (HITS) system.
The HITS service, branded Nxt Digital, will help the distribution fraternity smoothly transition to digital and allow customers to choose channels through a satellite multiplex across India.
“It is one of India’s national missions to roll out Digital Addressable Systems (DAS) of broadcasting all over the country and we believe ‘Nxt Digital’ is a significant step towards this goal,” said GIL, MD Tony D’Silva. “Thaicom is a trusted and experienced satellite provider which has played a vital role in this initiative and the substantial number of satellite transponders we have at the time of launch will continue to grow as we expand our portfolio.”
“We are proud to be able to contribute to India’s broadcast and media development and thank our Indian partners for their trust in us. This latest deal is particularly exciting for Thaicom as it marks an important milestone for us, not only in regards to Thaicom 7 now being 100 percent booked, but also in bringing our platform for content distribution to India which sets us in good stead for the launch of Thaicom 8,” said Thaicom CEO Paiboon Panuwattanawong.
Castle Media has been appointed as the technology program manager for Nxt Digital. It has been tasked with the design-to-delivery of the HITS service including setting up a state-of-the-art next generation broadcast facility and a robust back-end facility for SMS, CRM, Billing, CAS and other mission critical components and services.
“Thaicom 7 being a recently launched satellite exhibits strong parameters to facilitate a high-quality digital HITS service in India. We’ll continue to work closely with Thaicom to upscale our transponder requirements as our business grows over the next few years, on the back of a strong push by the government to make India a digital nation,” Castle Media ED Vynsley Fernandes added in parting.
