Spicy Stuff

Tata Sky or Zee Dish TV

Finally in India we have the "DTH Revolution". It's not new. It has been in existance for over a year now with Zee's Dish TV and Doordarshan's DTH. However Zee had been concentrating on areas where cable TV was not available - the rural areas. That has been corrected now.

DTH means Direct To Home. You can receive television channels directly from a satellite to your TV. No more hassels of cables and the cablewalas. These guys had a monopoly and their service was pathetic. Competition will teach them a good lesson.

DTH has been in existance in other countries for a long time now. I have seen how Sky operates in the UK and have been very impressed. There are so many features and the quality of the signals are crystal clear.

Now we have 2 choices, the Tata-Sky alliance or the Zee Dish TV. What you must considerr is the price and the availability of channels. While there can be no exclusive channes as per TRAI, the operator can opt out of broadcasting certain channels. Tata-Sky does not broadcast Zee channels while Dish TV gives you all channels including Sony, Star and Zee of course. Prices are competitive and in face may be cheaper than what is existing.

TRAI has set the limit on pricing of each pay channel. It is expected that the maximum retail price for every pay channel will be likely capped between Rs 3 and Rs 5. Further, all pay-channels, including movie, sports, or entertainment will be priced alike. However, TRAI will not intervene in bouquet pricing.

However the major deterrant will be the initial fee to be paid for the set-top-box. This can cost you up to Rs. 3000. It will worth switching over to DTH especially for the quality of service, signals and price. Plus there will be a number of value added services like Internet and pay-per-view.

Welcome to the next level in television entertainment. BTW, I do not have a TV at home (I think it's a waste of time)

posted by Arun @ 10:11 AM