Reliance BIG TV commercial operations on August 15 and also a IPL partner

Direct-to-Home (DTH) war is about to hot up with Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani (ADA) Group (BIGTV), Bharti Airtel (airtel Digital DTH) and Videocon Group(D2H) all set to join the indian DTH market.

Reliance Communications, India's second largest mobile services provider, said it would launch nationwide commercial operations of its DTH service from August 15, under the name BIG Digital TV DTH (BIG TV).

A Reliance official said the company would market its DTH service aggressively with the aim of becoming the No.1 DTH player within the first year of operation.

The tariff rates would be competitive and subscribers would have greater freedom of choosing from a wider variety of channels than what is presently being offered by current players, the official said.

The company is believed to have completed its trial runs in over 2000 towns and cities among customers of other Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani (ADA) Group companies and has reportedly received overwhelming response.

"The feedback was extremely positive. We will launch the DTH service with the aim of becoming No.1 in the market. We have already ordered 5 million Set Top Boxes from vendors in Korea and Taiwan," the official said, adding that the Set Top Boxes would come with a digital video recording facility.

Agrees Salil Kapoor, COO, Dish TV India Ltd. "The (MPEG-4) technology might be advantageous from the operator's angle. Compressed data files transmitted through satellite using MPEG-4, a high definition platform, will have better quality."

Though the service providers would have to bear the same cost of bandwidth irrespective of the technology used and MPEG-4 technology would make picture quality better, yet, "the price of the set-top boxes will be higher" for the customers," Kapoor said.

ALL of you Ready to get to see the BIG Tv soon.

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