CAS Roll Out-IV Positives Vibes

If everything goes as planned, from next year all metros would migrate to the CAS regime. A con sensus is slowly emerging among the channels regarding revenue and the quality of programmes aired on pay channels. With the price of pay channels fixed at Rs 5 trade pundits predict that there will be increase in the volume of growth post-December. Also, the fact that TRAI will review the scenario three months after implementation has helped them to approve the plan.

With the price of 30 FTA channels fixed at Rs 77 (excluding taxes) the total outflow per family may not exceed Rs 200 which means that the revenue of cable operators is bound to go down. But they are banking on a customer base which is projected to expand and grow. They are also confident that there can be mutual co-existence between CAS and the Direct-to-Home services as both exist on a digital platform.

They are now ready to roll out DVD quality picture, CD quality sound, Video on Demand and special features like selecting camera angles while watching cricket matches. The good old cable service providers are on a warpath to upgrade technology and win over customers. Fearing competition from DTH, they are now eyeing CAS as a lifeline.

In Kolkata, like in other metros where CAS will be introduced in phases, the TRAI is holding weekly meetings with the city’s MSOs to ensure that CAS is rolled out in the city on January 1, 2007. The MSOs participating in the roll out are Manthan Broadband, Cablecom, Indain Cablenet, Siticable, Kolkota Cables, Broadband Pariseva and Shrishti.Some cable operators got registered for CAS with the I&B in a confusion that CAS was being implemented all over Kolkata,but now the areas of phase 1 are clear to all.

The first phase will be rolled out in south Kolkata which includes Alipore, New Alipore, Behala, Chetla, Budge Budge, Garden Reach and parts of Tollygunge, Thakurpur, Haridevpur and Mahestala.

In Mumbai the main areas marked for the first phase are the area to the West of the main line of Central Railways between CST and Sion Railway Station, Ballard Estate, Nariman Point,Cuffe Parade,Colaba,Marine Drive,Gateway of India, Churchgate and Malabar Hill.

In Delhi, the area covering Chanakyapuri, Vasant Vihar, Safderjang, Vasantkunj, Kalkaji, Parliament House, Talkatora Road upto Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital have been marked.

A senior TRAI official said that it is important to monitor the launch at everystep. “The MSOs are supposed to provide us with detailed reports every fortnight. The reports deal with the area of operation, subscriber base and ability to cope with demand. 

The MSOs have also been asked to prepare a 3 feet x 4 feet map of the areas they are covering within the zones where CAS will be launched in the first phase”, he said.

The state governments of Maharashtra, New Delhi, West Bengal and Tamil Nadu have appointed nodal officers for the benefit of the consumers who are still at large regarding CAS area. They can contact the nodal officer of their respective state for details about CAS location. 

The Nodal Officers Appointed for CAS Monitoring

New Delhi

Mumbai

Kolkata

Channai

Shri Sanjeev Khirwar,

Commissioner (Entertainment Tax),

Excise, Entt. & Luxury Taxes Deptt.

New Delhis

Shri S V Mohite,

Deputy Commissioner of Police,

CB (P) CID, Mumbai Police

Mumbai

Shri Abhijit Sanyal,

Jt Secretary & Ex Officio,

Dierector of Film (I&CA)

Government of West Bengal

Shri Ambuj Sharma (I.A.S.),

Special Secretary (Home)

Govt of Tamil Nadu, 

Secretariat, Chennai

conditional access technology is concerned we discovered that each one had their own preferences.Incable,operational in all four metros has opted for Nagravision;Hathway which operates in Mumbai,Delhi and Chennai has chosen NDS; Siti Cable which covers all the metros except Chennai has Conax and in Kolkata Manthan has opted for Irdeto where as Cable Comm has Conax. Irdeto is also the choice of Home Cable in Delhi and Mumbai.The SMS billing software is being provided by Magnaquest for all of them.Only in Delhi Home Cable has selected Credible Solutions for SMS billings.

However, the STBs are coming from all different companies. Siti Cable which is providing CAS services under brand name GalaxZee is getting the STBs from Handan, a South Korean company.It is user friendly and loaded with hosts of features including DVB-C Standard,MPEG-2 digital and fully DVB compliant, finger printing, subtitle function and Electronic Programming Guide (EPG). These STBs are without CI slot and CAM. “We have sufficient stock of STBs.We have already seeded around 5000 boxes in the three cities and getting average enquiry of around 100 per day.This we hope would pick up by the first week of December,” said Arvind Mohan, senior vice-president,Siti Cable.

Incable is getting STBs with CI slot and CAM from Technotrendand Wistron..“We have around 1,50,000 STBs in stock, 18,000 have been deployed and around 50,000 ordered.There is a daily demand of around 200 STBs as of now,” said Ravi Mansukhani,Director-Incharge, Incable.

Cable Comm is distributing STBs with CI and CAM supplied by Kaon Media.Home Cable in Mumbai has opted for the STBs supplied by Bharat Electronics as well as by Kaon Media.But in Delhi , Logic Eastern would be supplying the STBs to Home Cable.Hathway claims that its daily demand of STBs is more than 1000.The STBs use smart card technology supplied by Humax.The STBs for Manthan are coming from Homecast and Technosat.They have 5,000 STBs in stock.

All the MSOs are offering the TRAI standard schemes.Cable Comm and Hathway are also offering a second scheme in which the consumers can purchase the STBs.The prices are Rs3,000 and Rs 4,000.Siti Cable intends to introduce special schemes by mid December depending on market dynamics and special package deals and tie ups with broadcasters.Incable has a special outright purchase scheme at Rs2,000. At present people are responding well to the rental schemes. However, Vikky Chowdhry, MD, Home Cable in Delhi reacted that the TRAI scheme of renting out STBs is a populist move and may not sustain for a long time. “Such schemes have not been forced upon DTH, Telecom or cellular operators.Why only on cable operators?”

Regarding DTH penetration in their domain the MSOs do not feel threatened though they agree that a small percentage of the consumers are shifting to DTH.Arvind Mohan of Siti Cable says that the channel carrying capacity of DTH is limited in view of expensive satellite bandwith required for retransmission,where as hundreds of channels can be delivered through digital cable. “It is significant to note that worldwide digital cable services still control about 60-70 per cent of market and India is not going to be an exception where the dominant share would remain with cable only,”he said. Mansukhani feels that the shift to DTH has to be seen in testing times of weather, services etc. “We don`t think any customer has fully shifted to DTH, at best they have taken DTH for their second TV for testing,” he said.

But what about high end services like HDTV and multi camera broadcast channels as done by DTH operators?

TRAI Advertisement for Consumer Awareness

Cable TV viewing will undergo a change with introduction of Conditional Access System from 31.12.2006 if you are residing in the CAS Notified Area:

1.Pay only for what you watch

2.Watch your favourite pay channel for Rs.5 per month (excluding taxes)

3.Watch 30 or more free to air channels for Rs.77 per month (excluding taxes)

All you need is a set-top-box on rental basis available at affordable rates. Other options also available. For this, apply immediately to your local operator.

But remember, you must apply now for set-top-box, without which pay channels cannot be watched after 31.12.2006. If you wait till the last moment, you may miss out on all the New Year fun on television!

4.Set-top-box is not necessary if you want to watch only free to air channels.

For any help or complaints

Contact the nodal officer nominated by the State Government: Shri Sanjeev Khirwar, Commissioner (Entertainment Tax), Excise, Entertainment & Luxury Taxes Department, L Block, Vikas Bhawan, ITO, New Delhi-110 002 Telephone No. 23370220 

A Jayaraman of Hathway replies that high definition content is currently not available in India and with multi camera broadcast, our platform is ready if the content is available to us. Migration to HDTV is definitely on the cards of all MSOs. “It is the next logical progression for the industry for any future growth. Since we have already tied up with “Open TV”, the interactivity features on cricket telecast, etc. would also be offered in due course,” said A Mohan.

“HDTV and Multicamera are not DTH domain.They are attributes of broadcasting and any digital delivery platform can provide it, which of course includes digital cable through digital STBs!” exclaimed Ravi Mansukhani.

All that the consumers need to do now is to get a STB on rental basis, available at affordable rates and catch up with the New Year fun on television.

Source: http://cablequest.org/articles/regulations/item/1391-cas-roll-out-iv-positives-vibes.html
Source: http://cablequest.org/articles/regulations/item/1391-cas-roll-out-iv-positives-vibes.html