Airtel Digital TV is the DTH (Direct to Home) from Bharti Airtel- The largest telecom

operator in India. It uses MPEG-4 digital compression with DVB-S2 technology,

transmitting using INSAT 4CR 74°E.

History
Airtel digital launched [2][3] on 8 October, 2008 with a 360 degree mega campaign 'Come
Home to the Magic' [4].

"Come Home To The Magic" advertisement

Since then it has launched 2 other campaigns: ‘Stars come home’ [4][5][6][7][8][9] (March
2009) and ‘DTH Picture Clarity’[10] (August 2009) has increased its channel base to 183+
channels. Airtel digital TV is now amongst the fastest growing DTH brands in the
country and is available across 5000+ towns in India[citation needed]. It has also been ranked as
the best DTH service by “Living Digital” magazine[citation needed].

DTH Service Pune Tatasky Airtel Digital TV Reliance Big TV

TV - Rs 1,490 - business
Posted on: Tue, 11 Aug 2009, 04:21 PM

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Offer/Wanted: Offer
DTH Bonanza!!!

Lowest Rate

Buy Reliance Big TV Only @ Rs. 1790/- (3 Months Free Subscription)

Buy Tatasky Only @ Rs. 1999/- (1 Months Free Subscription)

Buy Airtel Digital TV Only @ Rs. 1750/- (3 Months Free Subscription)

!!!Same Day Installation & Activation!!!

FREE HOME DELIVERY

Digital TV from Airtel launches 8 Annual Packages

digital TV-the DTH service from Bharti Airtel- has announced the launch of 8 Annual Packages for all
its customers- new and existing – across the country. They offer a strong bargain for customers on
both price and convenience. The Annual Packages for new customers are at 3 different price points –
Rs. 3450, Rs. 4350 and Rs. 5450–and include the Installation Cost and 12 months’ subscription. For
existing customers, the new packages are at 5 different price points – Rs.1088, Rs.1265, Rs. 1850,
Rs. 2750 and Rs. 3850 – and include cost savings ranging from Rs. 109 to Rs. 850. South Special
variants of these packages are also available for customers.

According to Sugato Banerji, Vice President-Marketing, Bharti Telemedia, “Over the last
eight months, the quick adoption of our service across the country has encouraged us to
innovate and further improve our service. With these 8 new Annual Packages we offer our
customers across the country, the choice of affordable prices and freedom from the
inconvenience of monthly recharges. Annual Packages are increasingly popular with our
DTH customers as they see the benefits of price protection for a full year with the added
convenience of just a one time recharge.”

New Airtel digital TV customers can choose from the following Annual Packages:

1. Rs.3450–includes the installation cost and 12 months’ subscription to Economy Pack

2. Rs.4350–includes the installation cost and 12 months’ subscription to New Mega Pack

3. Rs.5450–includes the installation cost and 12 months’ subscription to Ultra Pack with Rs.350 cash
back.

Existing Airtel digital TV customers can choose from the following Annual Packages:

1. Rs. 1088 – includes 12 months’ subscription to Super Value Pack

2. Rs. 1265- includes 12 months’ subscription to New Value Pack

3. Rs. 1850 – includes 12 months’ subscription to Economy Pack

4. Rs. 2750 – includes 12 months’ subscription to Mega Pack

5. Rs. 3850 – includes 12 months’ subscription to Ultra Pack

With their connection, each Airtel digital TV customer receives the latest MPEG4 standard with DVB
S2 technology, which translates into exceptional picture clarity and consistent high-quality audio. He
experiences a Universal Remote which operates both the Set Top Box and TV set and next-generation
Interactive Applications which offer the freedom to order pizzas and book movie tickets, amongst
others. The Airtel digital TV customer also has the pleasure of listening to 10 ad-free satellite radio
channels from Worldspace. All this is backed by 24×7 customer care.

Airtel adds to the joy of festive season – launches digital TV

First to offer MPEG4 with DVB S2 technology in Kolkata and Eastern India - exceptional picture clarity and
consistent high quality audio for the customer
 • Airtel launches digital TV in Kolkata, Durgapur, Asansol, Patna, Ranchi, Jamshedpur, Bhubaneshwar and
Guwahati in the first phase
• World-class technology backed by best-in-class customer care with 24x7 call centre in 8 languages,
including Bengali.
• Universal remote for both Set Top Box and TV that offers enhanced viewer convenience
• 20% larger dish antenna that offers better performance during rain
• Entry-level offer starting at Rs. 2499/- with 6 months free subscription

Kolkata, October 13, 2008: Bharti Airtel added to the joy of the festive season with the launch of Airtel digital TV,
its Direct To Home (DTH) TV service, in Kolkata and other key markets in the eastern region of India. The launch
is part of the 62 city first phase rollout of the service. In addition to the 8 cities, Airtel plans to introduce the service
in 20 cities across the region over the next six months. Airtel digital TV will be available across 3000 retail outlets,
including Airtel Relationship Centres, to begin with.

According to Mr. Atul Bindal, President - Telemedia Services, Bharti Airtel, “DTH is the future of television in
India and with Airtel digital TV we bring the best combination of latest technology and exciting content to
customers. The eastern region has been a key market for Airtel and over the years we have delighted millions of
customers with our telecom services. Now with Airtel digital TV, we plan to deliver a magical in-home
entertainment experience to customers in the region.”

Customers in the region can look forward to world-class home entertainment experience with Airtel digital TV that
offers over 175 channels including interactive applications, movies on demand, and World space radio to name a
few. Entry-level service packs start at Rs. 2499, which includes one time installation charges and 6 months free
subscription. Customers can also opt for convenient top-up plans based on their requirements.

N Arjun, Executive Director – DTH Services, Bharti Airtel, added, “Given our deep understanding of Indian
customer, we believe we have put together an excellent product that offers great bouquet of popular TV channels,
on-demand and interactive content. In line with the Airtel tradition, we have introduced simple to understand tariff
plans that will provide great value and choice to the customer. With Airtel’s strong distribution network and focus
on customer care, we hope to emerge as a leading player in this segment.”

Airtel digital TV uses the latest MPEG4 standard with DVB S2 technology, which translates into exceptional picture
clarity and consistent high quality audio for the customer. This latest technology also enables delivery of more
complex interactive content and is High Definition ready. Also, Airtel digital TV uses 20% larger dish antenna that
offers better performance during rain.

Besides the latest technology, Airtel digital TV brings many firsts to the DTH segment in India:

• Universal remote for both Set Top Box and TV that offers enhanced viewer convenience;
• Highest Set Top Box memory enabling more interactive applications;
• Exclusive content such as World space Radio;
• Interactive applications such as iMatinee (Book cinema tickets), iTravel (Browse and book travel
packages), iShop (Shop on TV for your favorite brands), iCity (Get your city’s information) and Widgets
(Update yourself on latest stock news). 8 screen iNews, 2 / 4 screen iSports.
• Amazing games with high quality graphics, refreshed every 6 weeks
• Audio gain control for uniform audio levels across all channels
• Simple and intuitive search
• On screen account meter
• Last viewed channel in case of power disruption/switch off
• Low battery indicator on the screen

These great viewing experience and unique features are backed by 24x7 customer care available in 8 different
languages including Bengali and a team of 800 professionally trained service engineers.

About Bharti Airtel Limited:

Bharti Airtel Limited, a group company of Bharti Enterprises, is India’s leading integrated telecom services provider
with an aggregate of over 77.24 million customers as of end of August 2008, consisting of 74.77 million mobile
customers. Bharti Airtel Limited has been voted as India's most innovative company, in a survey conducted by The
Wall Street Journal.
Bharti Airtel is structured into three strategic business units - Mobile services, Telemedia services and Enterprise
services. The mobile business provides mobile & fixed wireless services using GSM technology across 23 telecom
circles. The Telemedia business provides broadband & telephone services in 94 cities and is foraying into the IPTV
and DTH segments. The Enterprise business provides end-to-end telecom solutions to corporate customers and
national & international long distance services to carriers. All these services are provided under the Airtel brand.
Airtel’s high-speed optic fibre network currently spans over 78,540 kms covering all the major cities in the country.
The company has two international landing stations in Chennai that connects two submarine cable systems - i2i to
Singapore and SEA-ME-WE-4 to Europe. For more information, visit http://www.bhartiairtel.in/

<- Back to: FY2009-2010

Right distribution

Content is one of the two legs of the business. Equally important is distribution. Of
the 220 million homes in the country, around 130 million have a TV. And this number
is growing at 4 to 5 per cent per annum. Of these, around 85 million are cable and
satellite homes (including 13 million on DTH) and the rest depend on the terrestrial
network owned by the government.

The DTH industry hopes to expand to 20 million homes by the end of 2009-10.
Growth is coming from small towns and villages. In large cities, the cable operators
seem to have got their act together. In the smaller markets, customers have jumped
straight from the terrestrial network to DTH. The key, therefore, is to have as wide a
distribution network in place as possible for sale and service support.

Rural sale across most categories happen on the hub and spoke principle — a sale
office in a town takes care of all the villages in its vicinity. Dish TV, according to
Kapoor, has a presence in 6,600 towns across the country and this takes care of
more or less the whole country. All told, there are 45,000 Dish TV dealers. But the
sale of the DTH box and antenna is one part of the game. Equally important is to
simplify the recharge options in remote villages. Thus, Dish TV has 60,000 recharge
points in the country and the number will rise to 100,000 by the end of the financial
year. Two months ago, it had launched its mobile recharge service to leverage the
high penetration of mobile phones in rural markets.

In fact, Dish TV has two more plans to make recharge easier in remote villages. One,
it is in talks with the Department of Posts to stock its recharge cards in post offices. A
pilot is expected to run in Punjab first before it is scaled up to the rest of the country.
Two, it is encouraging its dealers of recharge coupons to stock other brands too so
that their business becomes more viable.

Price, brand and features

Sun Direct has clearly positioned itself as a price warrior. Its installation charges are
the lowest and so are its packages (of channel optio ns). Dish TV and others are
higher, though not by a huge margin. It is an open secret that all companies are
losing money hand over fist on set-top boxes, though Kapoor says Dish TV’s losses
are the lowest on account of the large scale of its orders. Companies, in other words,
make a loss when it comes to customer acquisition. So the import is clear: Like
telecom, those with higher average revenue per user will emerge winner. The
industry ARPU is estimated at between Rs 120 and Rs 130. Kapoor claims his ARPU
stands at Rs 142.

Rivals have also tried to sell advanced features on the hardware. Tata Sky offered the
facility to record programmes under Tata Sky Plus, a premium service. Dish TV had
announced that it will follow suit. But the right price and performance equation
seems to have eluded it so far. Airtel had launched services like one remote for TV
and set-top box, and automatic revert to the last channel in case of a power failure.
This doesn’t seem to bother Kapoor. “The unified remote gives only one added
facility which is the power to the TV set. It’s nothing great,” says he. “We deliberately
want our viewers to go the customer education channel whenever there is a power
failure. Otherwise, he will never visit that channel.”

That may be fine, but Kapoor does admit that the Tata brand is a tough challenge in
the market place. As a result, the contract with SRK has been extended by another
18 months. (Tata Sky has Amir Khan on its side.) Also, it has replaced its ad agency:
Lowe will make way for McCann Erickson. Prasoon Joshi, who heads McCann in India,
made the pitch himself. So you could expect some desi masala in all Dish TV
campaigns in the near future.

Cable Technology - Bharti Airtel Launches Airtel's Direct-to-Home

Digital Television Service

By Anil Sharma
TMCnet Contributing Editor

Bharti Airtel, India’s integrated telecom services provider, has launched Airtel Direct-to-Home (DTH) digital
television service based on NDS (News - Alert) end-to-end solution.
NDS Group plc, a subsidiary of News Corporation, supplies open end-to-end digital technology and services
to digital pay-TV platform operators and content providers. With this collaboration, Bharti Airtel (News - Alert)
subscribers are now able to enjoy advanced services.

NDS end-to-end solution including VideoGuard conditional access, MediaHighway middleware and
customized electronic programmed guide (EPG) would provide protection and enhancement to Bharti
Airtel's new digital satellite service.

NDS solution would also provide Bharti Airtel a flexibility to introduce future enhancements such as further
interactive applications and NDS’ world digital video recorder (DVR) technology.

“Over the years we have delighted millions of customers with our telecom services and now with Airtel digital
TV, we plan to deliver a magical in-home entertainment experience to TV viewers”, said N. Arjun, executive
director, Bharti Telemedia, in a statement.

Describing DTH, Arjun said that with Airtel digital TV, the company aims to bring the combination of latest
technology and exciting content.

“With the support of our technology partner, NDS, we look forward to providing superior, state-of-the-art
services to our DTH service customers.”

Bharti Airtel Limited, a group company of Bharti Enterprises, is an integrated telecom services provider with
around 80 million customers as of end of September 2008, and 77.47 million mobile customers.

Bharti Airtel is structured into three strategic business units - Mobile services, Telemedia services and
Enterprise services. The mobile business provides mobile & fixed wireless services using GSM technology
across 23 telecom circles

“Bharti Airtel’s decision to launch their DTH service with a suite of NDS solutions is a validation of the
technology leadership of NDS and recognition of the significant investment in NDS’ capabilities in India over
the past eight years”, said Sue Taylor, senior VP and general manager of NDS Asia Pacific.

Airtel has tied up with with Infosys for its direct-to-home (DTH) service, Airtel digital
TV. As part of the partnership, Infosys will provide a suite of products including devices,
application servers and interactive applications that will provide users local city
information through applications such as iCity, internet-like experience with iNet, live
stock quotes, breaking news, cricket scores, shopping deals and horoscopes. The Airtel
digital TV DTH service will also provide an application called tportal that offers select
websites packaged for TV-viewing.

The Airtel digital TV DTH service uses the latest MPEG4 standard with DVB S2
technology for high defintion picture and audio quality. Airtel digital TV uses a larger
dish antenna that claims to offer better performance during rain.

The Airtel digital TV DTH service, offers a universal remote for Set Top Box and TV
highest Set Top Box memory, interactive applications, such as iMatinee (Book cinema
tickets), iTravel (Browse and book travel
packages), iShop (Shop on TV for your favorite brands), iCity (Get your city’s
information) and Widgets (Update yourself on latest stock news), 8 screen iNews, and 2 /
4 screen iSports.

The Airtel digital TV DTH service also comes with games that are refreshed every six
weeks, audio gain control for uniform audio levels across all channels, intuitive search,
on screen account meter, last viewed channel in case of power disruption/switch off, and
low battery indicator on the screen.

Airtel digital TV was launched in Kolkata and other cities in eastern India, on October 9,
2008. Airtel plans to launch the Airtel digital TV DTH service in 20 cities in the Eastern
region, in the next six months.

Entry-level Airtel digital TV packs cost Rs 2499, for one-time installation charge and six-
month free subscription. Extras like selective channels will start from Rs 99 and all
channels will be available for a maximum of Rs 424 per month.

Customers can go for the Airtel digital TV value pack as well, which will cost Rs 99,
with three regional channels, Akash Bangla, 24 Ghanta, and NE TV.

The Airtel economy pack will come for Rs 199. With the economy pack, customers will
be offered nine channels from the East, which will include the three channels from the
value pack. The economy pack will also come with ETV Bihar, OTV, ETV Oriya, Zee
Bangla, ETV Bangla, and Star Ananda.

Airtel will also provide the Bengali radio channel ‘Sonar’ as part of its World Space
offering.

The Airtel digital TV DTH service will be available through 21,000 retail points,
including Airtel relationship centres in 62 cities across the country.

Airtel launched its Airtel Digital TV DTH service, in south India, on October 14, 2008, in
Tamil Nadu and other key markets of Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Kerala and
Pondicherry.

During the launch period, the Airtel Digital TV DTH service comes with limited-period
offers, such as the South Silver Offer, that includes a one-time installation charge and a
year’s subscription free for Rs. 2000.

The South Value Pack offers 79 channels, including popular regional TV channels,
movies on demand, interactive application, and World Space radio, at Rss 99 per month.

Atul Bindal, President – Telemedia Services, Bharti Airtel, said “DTH is the future of
television in India and with Airtel digital TV we bring the best combination of latest
technology and exciting content to customers. The southern region has been a key market
for Airtel and over the years we have delighted millions of customers with our telecom
services. Now with Airtel digital TV, we plan to deliver a magical in-home entertainment
experience to customers in the region.”