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Latha Venkatraman

Mumbai , July 13

MULTI-SYSTEM operators have hastened the process of digitilisation and have plans to roll out digital cable delivery system across cities in India.

Is it the coming of direct to home (DTH) service or the need for an addressable system? Either way the consumer is expected to benefit.

According to Mr Ashok Mansukhani, Executive Director - Corporate Services, HTMT, consolidation is certainly underway in the cable fraternity. From 40,000 cable operators the number would be down to 3,000 in the next five years. Consolidation is inevitable as stand-alone cable operators will not be able to bear the cost of upgradation of services.

With DTH becoming a reality, it was imperative for MSOs to go digital. Three leading MSOs — Hathway, Incablenet and Siticable — are in the process of digitilisation of their cable services. Incablenet and Hathway have set up fibre optic based digital cable systems in their networks. They provide 90 channels in analogue and 140 channels in digital delivery system using a set top box, Mr Mansukhani said.

The earlier analogue transmission system coupled with conditional access system not taking off had resulted in serious bandwidth constraints even as television channels continued to proliferate.

Digitalisation, according to Mr Mansukhani, will not only reduce bandwidth constraints but also help MSOs and cable operators to offer value-added services such as pay per view and video on demand. The MSOs' plan is to digitalise 31 cities by 2010.

According to Mr Mansukhani, Incablenet seeks to increase its capital expenditure on digitalisation. Hathway Cable and Datacom Private Limited has launched digital cable television services in Chennai, Mumbai, New Delhi and Pune.

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MSOs plan digital cable system

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