The Hindu Business Line : BEL eyeing broadband set-top boxes

Two years after foraying into set-top boxes for TV viewing through cable and DTH (direct-to-home), the defence electronics PSU is working on its broadband or telecom STB in its civil stream.

The box should be ready in a few months, a senior BEL official told Business Line. "A development team at BEL is working on bringing out a suitable product" for this segment, he added.

Broadband, which allows high-speed delivery of voice, video and data, requires specific devices, the Internet protocol or IP STBs at the user end.

While big-time broadband services would be a couple of years away in the country, telecom and cable broadband service majors are already laying thousands of km of optical fibre infrastructure for it.

Broadband revolution

When the broadband revolution happens, IP set-top boxes will have a huge market. That would be the next boom and that is where BEL would like to be, the official said. Meanwhile, the industry waits for the standards to be set for the IP STBs.

For the broadcast segment, BEL makes set-tops — branded BEST boxes — for both free and pay DTH channels; and for free cable and CAS (conditional access system) or pay cable channels.

IP set-top boxes' growth

However, the growth for IP set-tops is expected to be the fastest in the next few years and set to surpass the growth in the other STBs, though the introduction of CAS for cable TV could be a spur.

"BEL is well positioned with its products and is now exploring ways to convert the capability to market share," the official said. Broadband service through cable, as in the case of Andhra Pradesh's Rs 400-crore rural connectivity project, would be a good opportunity.

For the Rs 3,800-crore electronics major, broadcasting business is 5-8 eight per cent of the turnover. With 35,000 mainly free-to-air boxes sold, BEL is trying to break into the market for pay DTH set-tops. The ones used for pay DTHs of the current sole provider, Zee, are imports. "It is essential to get into pay channels as that's where the value is," the official said.

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