Claro only launched its Paraguayan DTH platform in June last year, and says it has already signed up more than 35,000 subscribers.  Carlos Calvo, the broadcaster’s business manager, said it was now aiming to have 100,000 subs on its books by the end of this year.

Claro says it is the only operator that reaches the whole country with the same offer.  40 per cent of the company’s subscribers are located in the capital city of Asunción and the remaining 60 per cent in the interior.

At present, the company’s growth pace accounts for three-to-four thousand subscribers per month, “therefore, it is hard to fulfill that goal,” said Calvo, but “we rely on 150 teams installing the service and we have already opened 100 point-of-sale outlets, that is, our deployment has not finished yet; therefore we expect to keep increasing our subscriber base month after month”.

Claro offers two packages: A Basic 44-channel basic Plan at $15, and the Extended 52-channel Plan at $22. “We are targeted to a quality strategy with a reduced line-up”. According to Calvo, in Paraguay price plays a key role when hiring a service and this is the reason why “the 80 per cent of Claro clients relies on the Basic Plan”. The DTH also offers an HD package made up of nine channels. However, at present, capacity in the satellite (Amazonas 1) is saturated; thus the possibility to migrate towards Mpeg 4 “to add more channels or to improve the already existing channels’ quality”.

Categories: Articles, Broadcast, DTH/Satellite