ITV

Tag: Sujit Das

  • CTMA to organise Cable TV Show 2015 in Kolkata from 18 Feb

    CTMA to organise Cable TV Show 2015 in Kolkata from 18 Feb

    KOLKATA: Cable TV Equipments Traders & Manufacturers Association (CTMA) is organising its three-day annual satellite and cable television show 2015 from 18-20 February at the Netaji Indoor Stadium in Kolkata.

     

    Thousands of cable operators, traders, manufacturers, channel partners, distributors, and broadcasters from across the country, Bhutan, Nepal, and Bangladesh are expected to attend the show.

     

    “Cable TV Show 2015 would showcase and promote latest products, technology, emerging trends and value added services in the cable television (CATV) sector,” said convenor of the event Pawan Jajodia to Indiantelevision.com.

     

    In keeping with the digitisation plans in Bangladesh, the year will see many LCOs from the country participating in the show as well.  

     

    All the major national multi system operators (MSOs) along with the regional MSOs are also likely put up their pavilions to show-case their service potential and new services, said a city-based MSO.

     

    Apart from the MSOs operating in the state, companies like Abhishek Cables, Alliance Broadband Services, Cisco Video Technology India and Zee Electronics among others are also putting up stalls to showcase their product and services.

     

    Advance Multisystem Broadband Communication (AMBC) will be displaying its Headend in the Sky (HITS) technology at the event, informed AMBC MD Sujit Das. While Manthan Broadband director Sudip Ghosh said the company will launch Video on demand (VoD) services apart from illustrating other products during the three day event.

     

    The event will see discussions around tax related issues, upcoming technology and providing technical assistance to small players. “Discussions on 4G and 4K technology will also be the highlight of the show,” informed Cable Operators Sangram Committee general secretary Apurba Bhattacharya.

     

    Sangram Committee, which recently extended its support to the Patna LMOs will offer membership to LMOs, along with technical and legal assistance. “We will also offer useful software at a low cost,” concluded Bhattacharya.

  • Kolkata LCOs want to raise bills, pay tax themselves

    Kolkata LCOs want to raise bills, pay tax themselves

    KOLKATA:  It is their fight for staying relevant and thwart looming extinction due to digitisation. More than 2,000 local cable operators (LCOs) from Kolkata have joined forces to keep the last mile in their control.

     

    The LCOs, under the banner of Joint Forum of Cable Operators’ Association (JFCOA), have decided to mobilise support and start billing their customers themselves, instead of their multi-system operators (MSOs) doing it.

     

    The LCOs also want to start paying service tax themselves to the government authorities.

     

    “We will conduct several meetings among operators across the city to mobilise support ,” said JFCOA convener Swapan Chowdhury.

     

    JFCOA has decided to put pressure on MSOs to make the necessary provisions in their systems to enable billing from the cable operators’ end.

     

    “(This has been decided) in order to restrain MSOs’ ill intention to eradicate LCOs from the business,” said Chowdhury, after a conference which also attended by representatives of MSOs Meghbela Broadband Services and GTPL-KCBPL.

     

    With the implementation of digitisation of cable TV services in Phase I and Phase II, the MSOs have been made responsible for sending of bills to cable TV consumers.

     

    Indiantelevision.com had last month reported that Kolkata’s LCOs have come together to form the JFCOA in a bid to articulate their problems to MSOs and the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI).

     
    The conference today discussed issues the LCOs have about billing, interconnect agreement, and the ratio of revenue sharing between LCOs and MSOs with the implementation of digitised delivery of television channels to television households.

      
    A member of the Cable Operators’ Sangram Committee said the LCOs have requested MSOs not to interrupt cable operators’ services till the various issues raised by them are resolved.

     

    The LCO suggested that there should be an interconnection agreement between the MSO and the LCOs to conduct business in the DAS regime. “In spite of a business relationship and business transactions between the two of them, no interconnect agreement has been followed till now, which is a violation of the law,” he said.

     
    Another LCO pointed out that MSOs were not executing the agreement with LCOs even though DAS had been implemented since February last year. “DAS agreement with cable operators should be completed by MSOs with immediate effect…” he demanded.

     

    Sujit Das, MD of AMBC, an MSO, said his company could not participate in the conference, but would still talk to affiliated LCOs and discuss issues raised via the forum.

  • 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.

  • National and local MSOs meet in Kolkata to discuss billing process

    National and local MSOs meet in Kolkata to discuss billing process

    KOLKATA: The multi system operators (MSOs) seem to be in full swing to bring the gross billing system in place. This time, to discuss the smooth rollout of gross billing in the Kolkata Municipal Area (KMA), the national representatives of MSOs that included SitiCable Network and Den Networks, along with the local players like Manthan and AMBC among few others met and signed a deal to expedite the process. 

     

    Kolkata has 30 lakh cable homes and most of them still get ad hoc bills from the MSOs. Thus, to implement the gross (consumer) billing for January, and bring transparency in the entire process, the MSOs have requested cable TV subscribers to ask for bills from the local cable operators (LCOs) before paying the monthly subscription charges.

     

    In fact, in order to ensure that the gross billing process is smooth in the KMA area, the MSOs from national and eastern regions meet regularly, especially after West Bengal and the central government authorities have asked them to speed up the process.

     

    “Today’s meeting was on the smooth rollout of the billing. Customers should ask for a bill from the LCOs before paying their bills every month,” said AMBC managing director Sujit Das.

     

    Siticable Kolkata director Suresh Sethia also brought to notice that the MSOs have conducted a check on the overall implementation of digital addressable system (DAS) including the billing and collection process.  

     

    According to the regulations set by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), subscribers will get 15 days from the date of the bill to make the payment. “In case the subscriber fails to make the payment till the due date, we may charge interest on the outstanding amount,” said Sethia, also adding that in the recent meeting the MSOs have decided to be firm on these agendas.

     

    The seriousness of the MSOs is evident as most of them have uploaded the bills on the server, and some have even given the print outs to the LCOs so that bill collection can be done, remarked a city based analyst.

  • AMBC eyes 5 lakh cable homes by Dec 2014

    AMBC eyes 5 lakh cable homes by Dec 2014

    KOLKATA: West Bengal multisystem operator, Advance Multisystem Broadband Communication (AMBC), which began its journey with a set of LCOs and isolated cable operators from Hooghly District in February 2000, is looking at expanding its footprint from the current around 4 lakh to 5 lakh cable TV homes by December this year.

     

    What’s more? According to AMBC managing director Sujit Das, the MSO plans to bring at least 1,000 LCOs within its fold from the present over 450 LCOs affiliated to it.

     

    Das informed that AMBC enjoys more than 1.56 lakh digital connections in the Kolkata Municipal Area (KMA) in DAS regions where it has seeded set top boxes (STBs) including Hooghly, Howrah, Nadia, Salt Lake and North 24 Parganas among others. The Rs 180 monthly subscription pack is quite popular with customers among these 1.56 cable TV homes, he said.

     

    The company has one digital headend catering to the KMA and three analogue headends, of which the ones at Arambag and Birbhum will be converted into digital ones with the implementation of DAS in analogue areas. “We have earmarked Rs 5 crore for converting the analogue headends into digital ones,” Das informed, adding that the MSO has 2.5 lakh analogue cable TV connections in locations such as Burdwan, Birbhum and parts of Bankura.

     

    Asked to comment on phases 3 and 4 of DAS, Das said the locations where the company has an analogue presence happen to be price-sensitive with the monthly subscription fees around Rs 100 to Rs 110. “Keeping in mind the price sensitive market, we might do various permutations and combinations while providing the channel package to consumers in DAS 4 areas,” he added.

     

    In Das’ words, AMBC is the first private limited company in the cable TV industry built with cable ops only and still run by a professional management team. The MSO works with the best channel sequence, which is reviewed from time to time depending on feedback from the ground.

     

    On the subject of the tiff between MSOs and LCOs over the revenue share model agreement, Das said the company always tries to protect all its franchisee operators from the hazards of the cable industry. On a concluding note, he said AMBC is ready with CAS, STB and SMS to meet future requirements of the industry.