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Digital cable TV will also be made available in Bangalore on 15
June. "We have the digital headends in place. For our expansion
to other new cities, we only need to have the fibre links,"
says Hathway Cable & Datacom chief executive officer K Jayaraman.
Hathway plans to expand to Punjab, Hyderabad and Nashik in the
second phase for which it will use the Motorola DWDM technology
as the transport carrier solution. While the digital headend in
Delhi will cater to the northern market expansion, the southern
language states will be serviced from Bangalore and the western
region from Mumbai. "We will be linking up through fibre from
the centralised centres of Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore which will
act as hubs," says Jayaraman.
The DWDM technology will also enable Hathway to carry data and
voice, whenever it is ready to offer these services. "We clearly
realise that digital is the way forward. We have already invested
Rs 1 billion towards this and have the set-top boxes (STBs) with
us. The expansion to the cities requires minor additional investments
towards fibre links and transport equipment," says Jayaraman.
Although Hathway has been trying to actively push its digital STBs,
the offtake has been agonisingly slow. But Jayaraman is hopeful
that it would catch on. "After our digital launch in the two
new cities, our target is to move 5,000 STBs a month. We are currently
selling 1,000 boxes a month," he says.
Hathway offers 115 television channels for its digital subscribers
who can buy the boxes outright at around Rs 4,000. Two installment
schemes are also available (Rs 2,000 upfront with four equal payments
of Rs 550, and an upfront of Rs 999 with 12 payments of Rs 275).
"We will be upping our offering to 140 channels by 15 June.
The monthly cable TV subscription fee is the same for both the analogue
and digital services," says Jayaraman.
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