(13 July 2009 8:30 pm)

MUMBAI: India has over 13 million DTH subscribers, posing a threat to digital cable TV which is growing at a snail's pace in the Cas (conditional access system) notified areas.

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) said Monday that the total number of registered subscribers being served by the five private direct-to-home operators had gone up to 13.09 million by the end of March 2009.

DTH is, thus, growing at 17.93 per cent quarter-on-quarter. According to Trai, India had 11.10 million DTH registered subscribers by 31 December 2008.

Dish TV, Tata Sky, Big TV, Sun Direct and Airtel Digital TV have already rolled out their services while consumer electronics major Videocon has delayed its launch.

Cable TV operators, on the other hand, have marginally increased the seeding of set-top boxes (STBs) in the Cas areas of Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai during this period. According to Trai, the total number of STBs installed increased to 770,053 in the quarter ended March 2009, as compared to 767,616 STBs in the previous quarter.

The cable industry, however, has introduced STBs in non-Cas areas at a relatively brisker pace. But data is not available on how many boxes have been installed across the country by the cable operators. A growth comparison with the DTH sector is, thus, not possible.

Meanwhile, Trai has also released the data on the number of pay-TV channels in India till 31 March 2009. There are 130 pay channels in India, as per the sector watchdog's report based on the data received from 19 broadcasters/distributors across the country.

There are a maximum of 168 free-to-air (FTA) and 118 pay channels being carried in any particular cable network, as reported by the multi-system operators (MSOs) to the sector regulator.

Interestingly, the maximum number of channels being carried by any of the reported MSO in digital mode is 233. In analogue form, however, the maximum number of channels being carried by any of the reported MSOs is 100 channels.

Trai said the quarter under review saw a single licence being issued for a teleport. With this, there are 55 operational teleport service providers till 31 March 2009.