National

IGNOU courses to come on mobiles, broadband

New Delhi: Students will soon be able to access course material for the Indira Gandhi National Open University on mobile phones and over broadband, thanks to a tie-up between the university and a company that is launching Internet Protocol television (IPTV) services in the country from October.

The tie-up will see IGNOU’s Gyan Darshan channel being broadcast over the Internet.

Time Broadband, which has entered into an understanding with BSNL to roll out IPTV services after the government recently cleared the guidelines for it, believes the new technology will redefine the entertainment space in India.

While the service is still in the nascent stage in the country, experts predict that by the end of this year, about 20 million homes worldwide would subscribe to IPTV services.

“The high point of providing IPTV services would be the easy accessibility by subscribers and the reach,” Time Broadband chief executive officer Sujata Dev told reporters here on Friday.

She said Time had also entered into an understanding with the International Society for Krishna Consciousness to provide spiritual discourses on the IPTV platform.

ISKCON, on its part, will produce 400 to 500 hours of content a year, said Haridas Prabhu, the founder of ISKCON’s broadcast ITV.

An established content provider for the entertainment industry, it was recently nominated at a competition in Cannes in France for producing a 120-second content for the mobile TV, the winner of which would be declared in October. — PTI

© Copyright 2000 - 2009 The Hindu