Airtel Digital TV Interactive: Airtel IPTV service launched

Bharti Airtel has finally launched their much awaited IPTV services.

The service is currently available in Delhi, Gurgaon and Noida.

The company promises fully interactive television viewing. Users can for instance order pizzas and book movie tickets on their TV.

They also get the ability to pause and rewind live TV as well as auto-record and store favourite programmes for 7 days.

Airtel is also offering Movie on Demand facility. Currently they have around 100 movies available.

Atul Bindal, President-Telemedia Services, Bharti Airtel spoke at the launch of the services: “Today, with the launch of Airtel digital TV interactive, we begin offering the Triple Play Advantage offer to our customers – leading in with voice, then broadband and now television and video on demand. We offer our customers a Single Knock on The Door experience – a uniform Airtel Quality of Experience with a single Customer Service interface and a single unified bill for voice, broadband and TV and video entertainment.”

They currently have two plans on offer:

Magic@ Home Pack – our Triple Play Plan – at Rs. 999 per month which gives 135 channels including 256 kbps broadband speed with unlimited download and a landline connection

Combo Pack – our IPTV and Broadband Plan – at Rs. 599 per month which gives 117 channels including 256 kbps broadband speed with download limit of 2.5 GB

Initial Cost is Rs.3,999 and the STB is found to have HDMI(For Video), S/PDIF (Optical Out for audio) and USB along with other common ports.

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Hutch to return in India.

Well if sources are to be believed Hutchison is looking to make a return in India after they sold their enterprise to Vodafone last year.

This time they are going to come as a full fledged 3G operator and to unveil their brand ’3′ in India.

As India is looking for 3G telephony now, it is believed that Hutchison is in talks with a leading buisness firm for a 3G license in the upcoming auctions.

Hutchison is known to be a pioneer in telecom industry and had given tough competition to companies like Airtel, Idea & Reliance.

It is not the 1st time that they are doing this.They use to own the Orange brand and operational in countries like UK, Ireland & Austrailia.When they sold that brand to France Telecom, they started with a new entity ’3′ in all of these places.

’3′ is known for their seamless wirefree braodbrand and super clarity voice telephony thorugh 3G mode.If they are successful in their plans, they can give sleepless nights to Indian Operators once again.Well for Vodafone it would be a dilemmatic situation because the network they are using is build up buy Hutchison itself and now they would see a improved replica as ’3′ who is a rival this time.

Let’s see what happens next.

Keep your finger crossed and Best of Luck for Hutchison and ’3′.

Cheers!!!!

MTNL launched 3G in Delhi and then BSNL announced its availability in Chennai by February. Now, it’s Bangalore mobile users’ turn to cheer for 3G. The state telco, Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) announced plans to launch 3G services in the IT capital from April onwards.

While announcing it in Bangalore, the Karnataka Telecom circle general manager (mobile services), R Mani, said, “3G services would be introduced in Chennai in March, followed by Bangalore in April.”

The Chinese telecom equipment maker, Huawei Technologies will supply the equipment by March.

The launch of 3G services has been making news in India. Another state telco, Mahanagar Telecom Nigam limited (MTNL) recently launched ‘Jadoo’, first to be launched 3G services in India.

Subhendu Ghosh, principal general manager, Bangalore Telecom District, said, “”BSNL is also all set to roll out 3G in a couple of months with all latest features. It will launch 3G in Chennai by February and in Karnataka by March.”

Last year, several other countries launched 3G but they are yet to reach out to to the wider audience, mainly because of higher costs and not up-to-the-mark service quality. BSNL will target high end subscribers like corporates and businesses till it reaches the stage where the services become affordable for all.

Till now, both the state telcos, MTNL and BSNL, have announced their launches or plan for launches in four major cities, including Mumbai. But, once the auction is over with major private players winning the spectrum, competition will get much tougher.

But, the question here is on the affordability of 3G. No one knows how long it will take to make 3G affordable for ordinary individuals.

Other problems facing Indian telecommunications departments are the lack of spectrum, security against misusage of modern technologies and most importantly, to start the 3G auction on time and avoiding further delay.

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New Delhi: In yet another attempt to push its falling landline numbers, state-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) on Wednesday announced the
nation-wide launch of Interactive Personalized Television & Video Services (IPTV) for its customers.

The telco said that these services would reinvent home television entertainment as it would enable its customers watch programmes according to their convenience from more than 140 TV channels.

BSNL will also offer customers who subscribe for these services an extensive movie library with Hollywood and Bollywood titles at no extra cost, the telco said.

The Transmission of content through Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) system implies a system wherein digital content services are delivered to subscribing customers using a broadband internet connection.

BSNL will be providing these services in collaboration with Smart Digivision Pvt Ltd. The Smart TV Group, consisting of Smart Digivision Pvt Ltd and Smart Broadband Services Pvt Ltd, has entered into long term contracts with MTNL and BSNL for providing co-branded interactive video services to their customers in 54 large cities across India.

Customers who avail IPTV services from BSNL can also be able to get video, music, games and eduction on demand.

In the next phase, the subscribers will get additional features such as being able to pause live TV, personalized stock ticker and digital digital Instant & scheduled recording.

“We have ambitious plans for broadband expansion. For the coming three years, we have plans to add three million broadband connections every year,” BSNL CMD Kuldeep Goyal said while launching these services.

HFCL promoter, Mr Mahendra Nahata, who is also the chairman of Smart Digivision Pvt said that the company’s engagement with BSNL, reflects Smart Digivision’s long term strategy to become consumers’ preferred entertainment provider”.

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Mumbai, Dec 30: The Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group announced its much-awaited GSM mobile telephone services spread over 11,000 towns and 340,000 villages with a capital infusion of Rs 10,000 crore (Rs 100 billion/USD 2 billion).

Chairman Anil Ambani, who launched the services from the Reliance Centre here, said the rollout happened six months ahead of schedule, with the company having secured the frequency spectrum for the services only in January.

“What has taken other companies 15 years to achieve, we have completed in less than 15 months,” Ambani said, adding that the GSM telephony will complement the group’s CDMA offering to give customers a wider choice.

The CDMA network of Reliance Communications spans more than 20,000 towns and 450,000 villages and has some 60 million subscribers across the country, as per the company’s web site.

The launch of GSM services came just two days after the 76th birth anniversary of the company’s late founder Dhirubhai H Ambani. It was on his 70th birth anniversary on December 28, 2002 that Reliance had launched its mobile phone services.

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BANGALORE, INDIA: Giving a new dimension to the mobile phone war in Karnataka, Idea Cellular Limited announced today the launch of its cellular service in the state.

As path of its growth strategy, the the cellular phone company, which is part of the Aditya Birla Group, had recently acquired Spice Communications Limited, paving way for its entry in Karnataka and Punjab.

While formally unveiling the Idea logo and new brand identity at a function here today, Sanjeev Aga, managing director, Idea Cellular Ltd, said, “We have used the mobile technology to change the lives of the people in India.”

“Idea’s commitment to offer the best product and service to the customers will user in a new dimension in mobile telephony experience for the people of the state.”

With the launch in Karnataka, the 15th state in India where Idea has marked its presence, the mobile phone service provider now covers over 80 per cent of the telephony potential of the country, said Himanshu Kapania, director – operations, Idea.

He said Idea will soon launch its service in Tamil Nadu as well. The network of Idea, which will be built on the current 14 lakh subscriber base of Spice, is spread over 3410 villages and towns.

“In 15 months the company hopes to increase it by three times,” Himanshu added. He also said the service will offer a congestion-free network, better audio experience and flawless customer service.

The network has the capacity to handle five million calls during peak hours. Idea’s 2.75G capable and 3G ready core network provides for all future technological enhancements. Idea also announced its entry into the PCO market in the state apart from the Internet service in the state.

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Vodafone Launches Voice SMS Service

Vodafone India announced the launch of their version of Voice SMS service for subscribers in 16 circles across India. The Voice SMS for Vodafone is powered by Kirusa, where Vodafone (prepaid and postpaid) users will also be able to send Voice SMSes to any mobile subscriber in India for a nominal charge.

The service is very similar to Airtel’s offering in terms of usage and features. To send a Voice SMS, a user needs to dial * followed by the recipient’s number. Each Voice message sent will cost 75 paise to the user. The recipient, on the other hand, can listen to the first Voice SMS for free, but subsequent retrievals will cost 75 paise per retrieval.

For more details, you can check out Vodafone’s Voice SMS page.

Courtesy : Techtree