Direct-to-Home (DTH) television is a method of receiving satellite television through signals emitted from satellites broadcast live. The Indian government allowed the reception and distribution of satellite television signals in November 2000. The country's first DTH service was launched by Dish TV on October 2, 2003. DD Free Dish, the first free DTH service in India, was launched by the public. broadcaster Prasar Bharati in December 2004. Abs Free Dish is another free DTH service operated by ABS Group.
India is the largest DTH market in the world with the number of subscribers. As of December 31, 2017, there are 67.56 million active DTH paying customers in the country. These numbers do not include customers of the free DTH service. The market is served by 6 paid DTH providers and 2 free DTH providers.
Video Direct-to-home television in India
History
The DTH service was first proposed in India in 1996. The proposal was not approved due to concerns over national security and negative cultural influences. In 1997, the Government of India banned DTH services when Rupert Murdoch-owned India Sky Broadcasting (ISkyB) will launch DTH services in the country. Following discussions among ministerial groups, DTH services were authorized by the NDA government in November 2000. The ministerial group was headed by Home Affairs Minister L.K Advani and included Information & amp; Broadcasting Minister Arun Jaitley, Information Technology Minister Pramod Mahajan, Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha, Defense Minister George Fernandes, Communication Minister Ram Vilas Paswan and Minister of Law Ram Jethmalani. The ministers made four major recommendations for regulating DTH services:
- No single entity, whether private or state-owned, must be allowed a monopoly in DTH services.
- The vertical integration of DTH and cable television services should be monitored to prevent monopoly formation in television distribution
- The vertical integration of DTH operators and television channels should be avoided to ensure fair competition between TV channels
The new policy announced in November 2000 requires all DTH operators to establish earth stations in India within 12 months of receiving the license. The DTH license is priced at $ 2.14 million with a validity of 10 years. The FDI limit in the DTH sector is limited to 49%, and the companies that operate the service are required to be led by an Indian citizen.
The first DTH service was launched in India on October 2, 2003 by Dish TV. The company decides not to compete with cable operators in metropolitan and urban areas, and instead focuses on providing services to rural areas and areas not served by cable television. Jawahar Goel, who led the launch, remembers 10 years later, "We rarely have four transponders and can only offer 48 channels, compared to analog cables that provide 60 and much cheaper, and STAR refuses to give channels, so we decided to slow down and concentrate on the cable-dry and cable-frustration market, rather than the cable-rich market and building the market step by step. "Dish TV acquired 350,000 subscribers within 2 years of launch.
Public broadcaster Prasar Bharati launched DD Direct Plus (now DD Free Dish) in December 2004. The service is free and only offers free air-to-air channels. Tata Sky was founded in 2004 as a joint venture between Tata Group and British Sky Broadcasting. Tata Sky launched the DTH service in August 2006. Unlike Dish TV, Tata Sky focuses on metros and big cities hoping to pull customers away from cable by offering better picture and audio quality and wider channel selection.
After a bitter legal process between STAR and Zee, in 2007, the two companies cultivated a truce and began offering their channels on their respective services. This decision and the acquisition of Dish TV over more transponders enabled them to offer 150 channels on their service, more than any other DTH service in India at the time.
Sun Direct and Airtel launched digital TV services in 2007 and 2008 respectively. Reliance Big TV (now Reliance Digital TV) was launched in August 2008. The service acquired 1 million subscribers within 90 days of launch, the fastest increase ever achieved by any DTH operator in the world. Videocon d2h launched its service in June 2009.
The total number of DTH customers in India increased from 1.5 million in 2005 to 23 million in 2010. Sun Direct became the first DTH provider to offer high-definition (HD) channels in early 2010. Tata Sky began offering HD channels by the end of the year that. Other DTH providers then start carrying HD channels.
India's set top boxes (STB) prices have plunged in decades since the DTH service was launched. Standard STB was priced INR 3999 in 2003, but decreased to INR 500 in 2014. That same year, DVR boxes capable of recording a television program were priced INR 2500.
In September 2012, the Union Government increased the FDI limit in the DTH sector from 49% to 74%. The government allows 100% FDI in the DTH industry in November 2015, with 49% through automated routes and higher investment subject to government approval.
Videocon d2h began offering a 4K Ultra HD content preview on DTH service in July 2014, and launched India's first 4K Ultra HD channel on January 26, 2015. This channel is not dedicated to single genres and instead broadcasts on demand (VOD) videos, lifestyle and travel content, sports, infotainment, concerts and Hollywood movies. This channel also broadcast 4K content created by international broadcasters. The first program broadcasted on the channel is live broadcast of a selection of 2014 ICC Cricket World Cup matches. Tata Sky also offers the live broadcast of the choice of matches in 4K.
A la carte
On September 3, 2007, the Indian Telecommunication Regulatory Authority (TRAI) issued the 2007 Telecommunications Interconnection Regulation (Change Fourth) , endorsed on 1 December; rules require all broadcasters to offer channels on a la carte basis. The regulation states, "All broadcasters will forcibly offer all their channels a la carte to DTH operators, and they can also offer bouquets, but they will not force any DTH operator to include the entire bouquet in any package offered by DTH. Operators to their customers ". Prior to the regulation, only customers in the area covered by the conditional access system (CAS), and the cabling system that provided the service, had the option to choose to buy only the channels they were interested in. TRAI intervenes after DTH operators complain that the announcer is forcing them to carry channels they do not want.
Some broadcasters, such as Indian STAR, Zee Turner, Set Discovery, and Sun TV, challenge TRAI's orders in the Telecommunication Dispute Settlement Court (TDSAT). On January 15, 2008, TDSAT refused to grant residence permit in an appeal that challenged the direction of TRAI; TDSAT rejects the objections of the broadcasters. The agency subsequently set aside the TRAI tariff regime in December 2007. TRAI challenged the TDSAT order in the Supreme Court, and stated in a hearing on July 22, 2010 that "in an analogous, non-addressable environment, authority is the view that a la carte should not be made mandatory at the level wholesale as a technological constraint, in any case making it impossible to benefit from providing a la carte to be forwarded to customers ".
TRAI ordered that pay-TV subscribers in India should be given a free channel option rather than being forced to choose package deals, enforcing a January 2011 deadline to implement the change. The order states, "Any service provider providing broadcast service or cable service to its subscribers using a addressable system will offer all paid channels to its customers on a la carte basis and shall determine the maximum retail price for each paid channel". Tata Sky, Airtel digital TV, Videocon d2h, and Reliance Digital TV launched the A la carte option in January 2011.
Maps Direct-to-home television in India
Pay DTH Provider List
On March 22, 2018, Dish TV joined Videocon d2h, creating the largest DTH provider in India.
Satellites
The Department of Space (DoS) requires all DTH operators in India to use only satellites commissioned by the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO). DTH operators may use capacity rented by ISRO from foreign satellites only if sufficient capacity is not available on ISRO satellites. The following 8 satellites are currently used by Indian DTH service providers:
Standard compression
All DTH services in India currently use MPEG-4 signal compression standards. MPEG-2 is still used by DishTV, TATA Sky, DD Free Dish. The update will switch from MPEG2 to MPEG4, but to switch completely from MPEG2 to MPEG4, the subscriber must change his STB 1 because MPEG2 STB can not decode MPEG4 video signal. MPEG-2 allows each transponder to carry about 20 SD channels (fewer, in the case of HD channels), while MPEG-4 allows each transponder to carry around 50 SD channels (again, less in case of HD channels). The bandwidth required to carry one HD channel is approximately equivalent to the bandwidth required to carry 4 SD channels.
References
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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