Going into 2010, television in India is set for a new age of digitisation. With the Union Government approving Headend-In-The-Sky (HITS), the Indian television viewer will soon get a cheaper option to watch digital television. Wire and Wireless India Ltd (WWIL), the country’s first HITS operator, believes this is the next big revolution in Indian television. Sudhir Agarwal, Chief Executive Officer, WWIL, speaks to BrandLine about the advantages of HITS and what it means for customers.

What is Headend-In-The-Sky (HITS) and how will it be implemented?

When terrestrial broadcasting started it was all very unorganised. Local cable operators would scan the skies for channels and beam it to the various localities. This was followed by large multisystem operators such as our predecessor called Siti Cable. This was one business model and the other business model started six years ago with DTH. The concept of DTH is that the signals are congregated at one place, they are beamed to a satellite and downloaded directly at the customer’s house through a dish antenna and a set-top box where decryption happens. HITS is something which is in between both of them. It’s quasi-cable business and quasi-DTH. All the signals are congregated in one place, they are encrypted and beamed to a satellite and they are downloaded at a central place and further distributed through cable.

What is the advantage of HITS? Why should a customer opt for it?

There are huge advantages for this technology. First, HITS is digital in nature so you upgrade the existing customer from analog to digital TV. Second, it is very fast to roll out. The signal is terrestrial in nature (as the signal is distributed through the cable) so you get signals across the country. All you need to do is get a receiving unit, download the signal and put it into the existing cable footprint.

What are the cost advantages of HITS over DTH?

HITS is an extremely capital-friendly technology. If digitisation of a given area costs Rs 2-3 crore via DTH, the same area can be digitised using HITS for Rs 3 lakh. There are a large number of areas in the country which are unviable to digitise because of the large investments required. But with HITS, even the remote areas would be covered at a viable cost. The reason for the cost advantage is you do not need to put separate digital headends everywhere. There is one single facility, the headend is on the satellite which beams and encrypts signals. All that is required after that is downloading the signals and distributing it. The Government is very keen to digitise the country to bring in more transparency in the country and provide better customer service. Being terrestrial, HITS is also going to be weather-proof unlike DTH where the signal goes missing when it rains.

Will HITS mean a return to the cable operator era when customers were held hostage to the local cable operators?

I don’t think so. The backend is controlled by the company directly. We have a system called SMS (subscriber management system) and every customer is logged onto that. The customers are directly connected to the local partners and WWIL for any service-related issues. There are also many other verticals of businesses. HITS need not necessarily be rolled out via cable operators. We could have direct points in townships and housing societies. We have had tremendous successes from the townships where we have already rolled out our direct point services.

How many cities is WWIL present in and what is the subscriber base currently?

We are present in 130 cities, present in a lot of industrial townships and we are constantly moving up. We currently offer 180 to 200 channels. At present we have 10 million customers overall. Customer care centres are in major cities such as Bangalore, Mumbai, Kolkata and Delhi. We plan to consolidate the customer care base in one place and harness the advantages. Our endeavour is to address the concerns of people regarding customer care.

How many channels can a HITS operator show?

Customers want a lot of channels and a lot of local channels and we can provide that with HITS. Once channels are downloaded a lot of local channels can be inserted. Besides this, we have two satellites with us, Asiasat and NSS. Transponder space won’t be an issue right now. If we want to add more channels we can route it locally.

Source: The Hindu Business Line