etcetera

I am thinking about swithing from Cable Tv to DTH or any other technology. But when I looked at the options, I was really disappointed.

Tata Sky and Dish TV project themselves in their advertisements as if they are panacea for all the cable problems. But in reality they are nothing but other form cable television. No service lets you chose single channels, you have to chose bouques. More so with Tata Sky, where there is single payment of Rs. 300 per month. In Dish, at least, you have a choise between 4-5 packages. And there are some more channels that are not available on normal cable like Goal TV which telecast SPL, Dutch League (Hurrah!). But otherwise its same old cable TV. There are some advantages like better picture quality and interactive services. But are they really worth, as you have to pay for unnecessary channels.

DTH should be more flexible. For example, on one of the Sundays, there were two Cricket matches going on on Star Sports and ESPN. So they didn't show football match. Really frustrating. Now, as ESPN-Star have rights for EPL and Cricket, they must provide user with choice to choose between sports. Even in case of Champions League matches, there must be option of chosing among 8 matches, just like they have on Sky Sports in UK. Otherwise DTH is useless.

From 1st January, Government will be implementing CAS in Metros. So user has to pay Rs.5 for each pay channel. System seems good as there is no bouquet system involved. But implementation is through cable operattor so it will be interesting to see how it turns out. Also setting up artificial limit of Rs.5 is also a contentious issue. Another technology, IPTV, is also in its initial stages and number of channels offered by MTNL is also limited.

The world is moving from normal DTH to DTH with HDTV and here we are still discussing whether to implement CAS or not. Ditto is the case with moble technology, where Japan and Korea are planning to move from 3G to 4G and Indian Governement plans to allot spectrums for 3G to Indian operators from March, 2008. Indian public maybe fast adapting to technology changes, but when there is a policy decision involved, there always seems to be lag because of Governement involvement.

Possible solution? Government officials should make all the technologies available to the public and let them decide the fate of the technology!