"We have leveraged synergies with our telecom business and tapped into our large existing telecom distribution channel in tier II and tier III cities."

On key features of your DTH service

Today, the discerning Indian customer is very conscious of the service he opts for and is also sensitive to price. The winning DTH service is one that offers superior quality, content and interactivity to its viewers. Customers across the country have perceived that digital TV from Airtel offers them that superior service and unique interactive services.

Our service promises to bring magical entertainment into the customer's home. We offer a distinctly superior product by presenting many firsts in TV-viewing. We are the sole national level DTH player to offer customers MPEG4 DVB S2 standard, which offers exceptional picture clarity and sound fidelity. Our Universal Remote which controls both the set top box and the TV set offers our customers more convenience and comfort. Airtel digital TV was the first to bring this facility to the DTH segment.

Our interactive services, which are the next-generation standard, enable our customers to do much more than just watch TV. From booking movie tickets to stock updates via widgets, to daily astro charts, to multi-screen news, all on their TV screens. Power resume function allows a viewer to resume from the same channel that he was watching, once the power is restored after a failure.

We offer an electronic program guide both in English and Hindi. We have 20 percent bigger dish antenna in high-precipitation areas for uninterrupted and better viewing experience during rains. Airtel Digital TV offers six games in the ‘Game Zone', which are refreshed regularly. The Game Zone covers games for all age groups and all genres. Currently, the popular ones are cricket and football-based games apart from the only three-screen game in India-Getris. We also have six exclusive movie channels, which run a mix of contemporary movies as well as the latest blockbusters from Hollywood, Bollywood and regional languages.

On expansion plans in 2010

Airtel digital TV is now available through 45,000 retail points in over 5000 cities and towns across the country. We plan to roll out deeper to other rural areas and reach all parts of the country through a network of modern trade, conventional as well as rural distributors. To expand our reach, we have leveraged synergies with our telecom business and tapped into our large existing telecom distribution channel in tier II and tier III cities.

On number of satellite transponders allocated for DTH services

We have seven transponders from Insat-4CR

On the total number of DTH subscribers

We have a customer base of over 2 million customers. We have taken leaderships positions in most markets, in spite of being a late entrant. Today, every fourth DTH customer is an Airtel digital TV subscriber.