Aksh Optifibre ties up with Elitcore Technologies

Televisionpoint.com Correspondent
Aksh Optifibre, a provider of Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) solutions in India, has tied up with Elitcore Technologies, an Ahmedabad-based software technology company to provide billing solutions, VoIP services and back office management for its subscribers. The cost of the project is $1 million. Billing is an important aspect for the IPTV service providers.

IPTV is digital television delivered on your TV (and not PC) through high speed internet (broadband) connection. In this service, channels are encoded in IP format and delivered to the TV through a set top box. IPTV service also includes video-ondemand, which is similar to watching video CDs/DVDs using a VCD/DVD player.

"Though awareness about IPTV is required, we hope to have around half-a-million customers for IPTV in Mumbai and Delhi in the next two years," says Dr. K.S. Choudhari, Managing Director, Aksh Optifibre.

Elitcore has been entrusted with developing convergent billing solutions which can charge customers based on their usage, can manage the catalogue, revenue sharing, integration with MTNL subscribers and subsequently to offer pre-paid cards for IPTV. With the help of IPTV, the customers can now source telephone, broadband and television services from a single operator that will make billing easier.

Aksh Optifibre is a franchisee for IPTV services to its subscribers in Delhi and Mumbai and the first one to start these services in India. Aksh has entered into a sevenyear agreement with MTNL to provide IPTV to provide services in Mumbai and Delhi.

IPTV is a direct substitute for television content with several add-on features such as timeshifted television, interactive games, video calling, e-learning with better quality of reception. The IPTV also empowers viewer to pay only for the time he spends watching it unlike CAS or cable.

"We will be deploying our software to deliver end-to-end billing and customer-centric management that meets policy management, authentication and customer care requirements. The software will offer end to end provisioning in real time mode. On the business support systems front, it will offer solutions for the partner settlement with content providers and revenue sharing modules." says Elitcore COO and president Nikhil Jain.