“Herculean” task for India digital conversion
June 24, 2015
By Chris Forrester
A report from India’s Television Post says that the pace of installing digital set-top boxes in India’s Phase III towns is “agonisingly slow” and that MSOs face a “herculean task” in digitising their networks.
Siti Cable’s COO Anil Malhotra says the distribution of boxes is barely one tenth of that needed in order to meet a December 31st 2015 deadline.
One major MSO (Hathway Cable) is named and shamed as having distributed zero boxes in the first quarter of the year, despite planning to issue some 2.5 million boxes this year.
The task ahead is said to need 38.8 million boxes to be issued, and covering 630 districts. Add in business premises, shops and other establishments where TV is usually playing, and the number of converter boxes jumps to an estimated 47 million.