DTH
Executive Summary

DTH stands for Direct to Home. The signals are dispatched from a satellite directly to a viewer's home. In its simplest form, TV Channels would be broadcast from the satellite to a small dish antenna mounted on the window or rooftop of the viewer's home. In today's scenario of cable TV where, the cable operator or/and the Multi System Operator (M.S.O.) work as middlemen or distributors of the satellite signals, this method of transmitting directly to customer's premises does away with the middlemen.

DTH can provide entertainment, news and lots more to a viewer and even to those pockets of the country where cable and Doordarshan have not yet reached. There are about 70 million TV homes out of which only 35 million have been connected by cable. The balance 35 million TV homes today have access to only Doordarshan. Within these homes, if accessibility to satellite channels is an issue, DTH will be able to provide a solution. However the primary potential for DTH will remain with the existing upper end of the C&S HHs.

The Zee group will likely launch its Direct-to-Home (DTH) broadcasting service from October 2, next month. As per norms, only an Indian satellite is to be used. Zee would be employing ISRO's Insat 3A. In July this year, the government had issued the letter of intent to Subhash Chandra's ASC Enterprises to launch its DTH service. To start with, the Zee group plans to offer 50-odd channels at a monthly subscription cost of around Rs 200. In addition, DTH subscribers would also have to make a one-time investment of around Rs 4,000 for a pizza-sized dish antenna and digital decoder.

STAR TV-promoted Space TV is also awaiting governmental nod for the launch of its DTH service. Prasar Bharati is gearing up to be the third player to offer DTH service by early next year. Prasar Bharati's DTH service would be driven largely by Doordarshan's existing fare and is targeted at areas such as North East and Rajasthan where its terrestrial service is not readily available. DTH subscribers to Prasar Bharati's service would just have to make a one-time investment for the decoder and the dish antennae, with no monthly subscription charges. The next two recent players in this field are Essel Shyam (a V-sat and infrastructure company partly owned by Zee group) and Noida Software Technology Park Ltd (NSTPL) a group company of Dr. J K Jain promoted- Jain Studios.

DTH, as a technology is going to play a major role in the new world of convergence. If India has to catch up with the world and become a super power, DTH can play a very important and deciding role. Any current user of internet, if he spends 2 hours per day on internet, his telephone bill on a monthly basis comes to about Rs 1500/-. If the same service were offered to him on a DTH platform it would not only be faster and satisfying but also time saving. Such a customer may gladly give out Rs.1000/- per month for such a service. DTH can also be used to give number of other value added services like-fax, voice, teleshopping, ecommerce etc. The list is huge and only imagination of the DTH Company would be the barrier in tapping this extra ordinary communication tool.

What is DTH?

DTH stands for Direct to Home. The signals are dispatched from a satellite directly to the homes of viewers. In its simplest form, TV Channels would be broadcast from a satellite to small dish antenna mounted on a window or rooftop of the viewer's home. In today's scenario of cable TV where, the cable operator or/and the Multi System Operator (M.S.O.) work as middlemen or distributors of satellite signals, this method of transmission directly to customer's premises does away with the middlemen. Currently the cable operators receive the satellite TV Signals first and then retransmit the same through cables to their subscriber's home for which they collect monthly subscriptions from the customers.

The cable operators then make payments to the M.S.O. on the basis of points declared and the rate at which the M.S.O. is providing signal feed to the operators while the M.S.O. in turn makes payment to the satellite channel operators for the various pay channels depending on the number of points they have agreed to and the rate of the pay channel negotiated between them.

In DTH, the payments are made directly by the user to the Satellite Company offering such service. There is no need for a cable operator or M.S.O. The signals are received directly from the Satellite Company and the payments are made directly to the DTH Company.

How does it work?

DTH operating on Ku band which the government has recently allowed, needs only a small dish (1 or 2 feet) in diameter which can be easily installed on roof top or a window of the subscriber's home. Installation is simple and requires bare minimum of maintenance.
The digital decoders which would be required can perform number of other functions like giving out electronic program guides, auto start favorite programs as per schedule, download data for other non-TV uses.

Why DTH?

DTH gives better quality picture than conventional cable TV because cable TV in India is analog. Even if the cable might receive the signal through a digital receiver, the transmission in his cable is still analog. Analog as we all know is subject to various disturbances and degradations during transmission on cable.
DTH can give stereophonic sound effects which is not the case in Indian cable TV scenario today. The cable operator may receive the audio in his control room in stereo but when it comes to re-transmission on cable he uses mono (One audio track) modulators. Enjoying movies or music with accompanying stereo sound is a good experience which DTH can easily offer.

Process
DTH boxes (decoders) would be of addressable type. Each individual box can be connected/disconnected from the DTH control center. A customer may even choose a set of channels instead of the total bouquet on offer. Lot of niche/specialist channels would find an open market for professionals and educational institutions.
DTH is a new technology with lot of power to bring about change in the Indian broadcasting scenario.

Reach
DTH can provide entertainment, news and lots more to those people and those pockets of the country where cable and Doordarshan have not yet reached. There are about 70 million TV homes out of which only 35 million have been connected by cable. The balance 35 million TV homes today have access to only Doordarshan. Within these homes, if accessibility to satellite channels is an issue, DTH will be able to provide a solution. However the primary potential for DTH will remain with the existing upper end of the C&S HHs.
The Government has allowed DTH to be used for voice/date/fax/internet but only on the condition that for these value added services a separate license has to be taken by the DTH company.

Is it a feasible Solution?

Going back to the basics one must remember that DTH will operate on the Ku band, which is a band of frequency above 4800 MHz. Ku band has a peculiarity that during heavy rains the DTH signal just fades away. The attenuation of Ku band signals during rains is high in the atmosphere. The DTH subscriber may receive just nothing during rains. Cable TV has no such problem. Those DTH subscribers who face this problem would like to keep a cable connection as a stand by.

As per data available the cable operators' local channel, which also shows movies, is the prime channel in terms of viewership. This local channel's popularity would induce DTH subscribers to keep their cable TV connection also. Local programming is not possible on DTH.

We must not forget that DTH is wireless cable TV. Cable TV today is through physical cable. Wireless solutions are always expensive compared to wired solutions. Cable TV to day is a wired solution of providing satellite channels to individual homes. We must remember that a mobile phone, which is a wireless solution, will always remain expensive than land (P &T) phones.

Will It Succeed?

Other Applications of the technology

DTH, as a technology is going to play a major role in the New World of convergence. If India has to catch up with the world and become a super power, DTH can play a very important and deciding role.
DTH is a direct link to an individual's home via satellite. It can become a major source of high speed Internet delivery to an individual's home. Currently Internet is mainly accessed through telephone lines. A very high percentage of internet users are fed up with the quality of service (QOS) offered by telephone companies. The data transfer speeds also are very low and the service bothersome at times.

The satellite can download Internet at very high speeds to the home user's dish. The uplink will be through a telephone line to the local telephone exchange and onward to the network control which will uplink the reply to satellite for downlinking to the individual's home via a DTH platform.
Any current user of Internet, if he spends 2 hours per day on Internet, his telephone bill on a monthly basis comes to about Rs 1500/-. If the same service were offered to him on a DTH platform it would not only be faster and satisfying but also time saving. Such a customer may gladly give out Rs.1000/- per month for such a service.

Today the major sale of computers is taking place in the home segment. The maximum numbers of users of Internet do it from the comfort of their home. DTH based Internet access would be a boon for this category. The other high categories of Internet users do it from cyber cafes. These cyber cafes would also love to provide high speeds of access to Internet to their clients, DTH based internet again would find a steady base of customers among cyber cafe users.
Satellite radio is a new concept in entertainment today. World space, a company based in USA offers this service. DTH can be a very good platform to deliver latest Hindi, English & regional songs, news and other features in digital, stereo mode to their subscribers.

E-commerce, which is in an undeveloped stage in India, can use the DTH Platform to directly reach those users who are financially rich and who own computers. The business prospects for E-commerce automatically goes up because the users of DTH would have money power as DTH service in itself is going to be costly.
DTH can also be used to give number of value added services like-fax, voice, Internet, teleshopping, ecommerce etc. The list is huge and only imagination of the DTH Company would be the barrier in tapping this extra ordinary communication tool.

The Final Verdict: CAS or DTH?

Direct-to-Home will enable consumers to receive the signals directly through the satellite by means of a small pizza-sized dish antenna while in CAS the service providers would still remain to be the local cablewallahs, who would provide the specific channels being opted for. Thus DTH eliminates intermediaries like the cable operators and the MSOs.

As reception would be directly from the satellite, consumers of Direct-to-Home will receive better quality of transmission as against that received by consumers of CAS. In the CAS scenario the final picture and sound quality would depend on the type of STB box the MSO would go in for. The digital boxes would definitely provide better picture and sound then the conventional analog boxes.

Direct-to-Home thus also targets the remainder of the 35 million TV owning households not yet connected by satellite channels, where accessibility is an issue.

In terms of cost, both DTH and CAS will require consumers to buy the set-top box. DTH will also require the installation of a small dish antenna for receiving the signals. Thus for CAS the initial payment for the STB will be anywhere between Rs. 2800-Rs.5500 while that for DTH will be around Rs.4000-Rs 6000. CAS would require the consumer to pay a monthly minimum fee for all the FTA channels (somewhere around Rs. 60-Rs. 75) and then there would be individual prices for each of the paid channels. In DTH the offering would be, say for e.g. a basket of 50 channels for a fee of Rs. 200 only as indicated by Zee.

DTH scores over CAS in enabling the consumers to be exposed to a variety of new channels introduced by the DTH service provider, which would be a part of the basket offering.

DTH loses out on the fact that it will operate on the Ku band, which has a peculiarity that during heavy rains the DTH signal just fades away. The attenuation of Ku band signals during rains is high in the atmosphere due to which the DTH subscriber may receive just nothing during rains. Cable TV has no such problem.

The cable operators' local channel, which also shows movies, is the prime channel in terms of viewership. As local programming is not possible on DTH, the demand for the local channel would induce DTH subscribers to keep their cable TV connection also.

Address your queries to Madhavi Goswami at intellect@lowemail.com