TIRUNELVELI/VELLORE: In a bid to provide quality cable service at an affordable cost, the Arasu Cable TV Corporation (ACTVC) on Monday launched its services in southern districts like Tirunelveli, Thoothukudi, Kanyakumari, Virudhunagar, Madurai, Ramanathapuram and Theni and also in Vellore covering the districts of Tiruvallur, Kancheepuram, Tiruvannamalai, Dharmapuri and Krishnagiri.

Assembly Speaker R Avudaiyappan formally launched the services in the presence of Tirunelveli district Collector G Prakash, Corporation Mayor A L Subramaniam and other key officials.

Initially, two control rooms were set up in Thanjavur and Coimbatore in July and August respectively. Tirunelveli is the third district to get such a control room in the State.

The control room with the state-of-theart technology has three outputs – analogue, digital and I/P (for long distance transmission). Short distance transmission will be done using RailTel fibre and ACTVC’s own fibre network. The control room equipment have been imported from France.

The ACTVC will relay 54 free air channels and some pay channels to start with.

The number of channels is expected to increase to 75 in the next few days.

Vellore district Collector Dharmendra Pratap Yadav, who inaugurated the cable operation in Vellore, said that the government’s focus was on providing quality services at an affordable cost.

According to P Sampath, general manager (operations), ACTVC, the corporation would be relaying analog signals with 80 channels in English, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam and Kannada on a payment of Rs 100. Over 200 channels could be viewed through the digital mode with the help of set top box that might cost around Rs 1,500. The digital and IPTV mode would be offered in a phased manner, he added.