(25 August 2005 9:00 pm)

MUMBAI: Siticable has dropped plans to enter into a deal with Punj family-controlled Spectranet as the talks prolonged for too long.

No settlement could be arrived at on the cost of takeover for running Spectranet's operations. Besides, Spectranet's franchisee cable operators in Delhi migrated to other multi system operators (MSOs).

"We have shelved our plans. The management at Spectranet took too long to decide and hand over the network. The price they wanted was also too high," said a source in Siticable.

Siticable was in advanced talks with Spectranet to take it on lease for at least a period of three years. The primary objective was to get access to the fibre laid out by Spectranet in Delhi. This Would have enabled Siticable's digital headend to be linked with its master control rooms in Delhi on Spectranet's optic fibre backbone.

The other aim was to get access to the cable operators of Spectranet. "We were looking at a deal in totality. But the delay on finalising the terms spoilt whatever plans we had with Spectranet," says the source.

Siticable has already linked its digital headend with five of its control rooms in Delhi via fibre optic. Only two control rooms are not linked and are running on analogue. "We are examining options of using the fibre backbone of Bharti or VSNL or other players. This would allow us to offer a total digital system across the city," says the source.

Former Star India distribution head Arun Mohan had stitched a 10-year lease management deal with Spectranet through his company AM Trinity Platco. But with conditional access system not taking off, early this year Mohan decided to get out of the cable TV business and terminated the contract. Spectranet got into talks with Siticable but soon cable operators fled from the network to hitch on to the other MSOs like Incablenet and Hathway Cable & Datacom.

Siticable has taken on lease two independent operators in Bangalore, Ice Network and Atria Network. The company acquired in May Indian Cable Net (earlier RPG Netcom), a Kolkatta-based MSO, and wants to aggressively spread more affiliates across the country.