Bharti Teletech diversifies into digital set top boxes

Televisionpoint.com Team
Bharti Teletech has announced its diversification into digital set top boxes, in the organised retail sector, used for direct-to-home services. The launch of the DTH set top boxes is in keeping with the company's strategy to diversify into new areas. The telecom plans to start with an initial investment of $ 2 million.

However, vice-chairman and managing director Rakesh Mittal Bharti Teletech ruled out the company's entry into the DTH arena at this juncture, saying "there is no such plan. Even the policy on conditional access system (CAS) is not clear." With the set-top boxes introduced by Bharti, the subscribers would be able to watch 33 free-to-air channels of Prasar Bharati and listen to 12 FM channels, Mr Mittal said, adding that along with set-top boxes, a small dish antenna would have to be added. The company has introduced two models of set-top boxes, costing RS 2,295 and RS 2,995. The dish antenna would cost about RS 500. Incidentally, the company has tied up with a few vendors to supply dish antenna and set top box in a package.

The set-top boxes, currently being imported, would be sold under the Beetel brand and the company has fixed a target of selling 200,000 boxes by the year-end, Mr Mittal said, adding that the company would start manufacturing the boxes at its two facilities in Ludhiana and Goa by next year. Meanwhile, Bharti Teletech, the manufacturer of fixedline phones, is soon slated to come out with products that are compatible with the subscriber identification module or SIM card of cellular phones. Such a product is currently not available in the country.

"We will launch fixed-line phones by November, which can read the memory from the cellular SIM card and store it in the fixed-line phone," said MR Rakesh Bharti Mittal.

These "fixed-line corded phones" will not only read the memory of a conventional cell SIM card, but also store its details. The result will be a landline with a directory exactly similar to a mobile phonebook. The new phone will be available in the retail market by the year-end. "Our software engineers have been asked to develop a patch to read SIM card memory and convert that into landline dialling codes," Mittal said.

"It is currently being tested and we are planning a launch in November," said MR Mittal, speaking on the completion of the fastest-ever production of a million phones in its Ludhiana manufacturing unit.