Airtel DTH at your doorstep on October 9; Airtel Digital to offer many firsts

Airtel DTH Launch: Bharti Airtel Ltd, India's top telecom firm, said on Tuesday it would launch direct-to-home (DTH) satellite television services from Oct. 9, initially in 62 cities. "The penetration of the market is just about 3 percent. We have just seven million DTH customers in the country. This is a right time for Airtel to enter," Manoj Kohli, the firm's chief executive officer, told a news conference.
According to Kohli, the company's DTH services will have for both set top box (STB) that receives signal from the antenna, and the television set, besides other features such as high STB memory, exclusive interactive applications, onscreen and more efficient battery.
The service would be available to customers through 21,000 retail points including Airtel Relationship Centres in 62 cities.

Current DTH stand in India: At present, there are five DTH players in the Indian market. There are 225 million households across the country and the penetration is only 3 per cent for DTH services.
Initially, the company had introduced three different packages for the North and Southern markets.

Airtel Direct to Home tariffs: For the Northern market, the package starts from Rs 2,499 and for the South, the package would start from Rs 1,499.
Depending on the language and genre of channels, the monthly tariffs would range from Rs 125 to Rs 424, he informed.
The company would also offer special deals for its eight million existing mobile, broadband and other customers.

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;
* Exclusivecontent 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