Andhra Pradesh - Hyderabad

Subscribers have wide range to choose from

HYDERABAD: It’s boom time for those who intend to get a set top box home.

With competitive pricing and multiple offers like free set top boxes or free subscription, new DTH subscribers have a wide range to choose from.

And this has left the existing subscribers fretting and fuming over their ‘loss’.

Says S.Gautam, “When we took DTH two years ago, we paid over Rs. 4,000 for the connection, including installation charges and for the set top box, but now Reliance and Sun are offering for a little over Rs. 1,000 for a new connection.”

Others feel that DTH is now a necessity thanks to the bad transmission quality provided by cable television operators.

“Initially there were just two or three players in the field and owning a DTH was more a status symbol then a necessity. But now it’s the other way around,” says Sreeja Ganesh, a housewife.

For parents of students, the service seems the perfect way of limiting television viewing time. Says B. Shilpa, “My parents went in for DTH because it offers limited channels apart from the parental control tools.” She says the limited channels automatically limits viewing.

For many like K. Bapaiah it’s the better picture quality and audio control apart from the programme list that attracted him to go in for DTH.

“For Rs. 1,500 one gets a set top box along with a range of channels to choose from and three months of free subscription to watch the latest movies in Reliance Big TV. What more does one want?” asks M. Krishna.

And for others like Karthik Raghavan and P. Srikanth it’s a ‘wait and watch’ game.

“Videocon and Airtel are going to enter the market and I am pretty sure it’s only going to get cheaper in the future,” says Karthik.

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