Is Bharti Televentures planning to enter the DTH market?

Is Bharti Televentures planning to enter the DTH market?

The pointers are all there despite their denials. As a consolidated operator- i.e. mobile telephony business, broadband through DSL and their own manufacturing set up for equipments, this is distinct possibility. They might hook up content via tie-ups with the private operators, make a hullabaloo about it, and earn handsome profits.

They have started manufacturing their own set top boxes; initially they might be sold to upcoming operators and later they might just decide to branch out on their own.

By current estimates, there are roughly 80+ million subscribers to the Cable TV- given the fact that Entertainment sells. In a way, this is a huge captive market. The operators are going all out to tie up with various PC vendors to be able to make a dent in their flat sales graphs. Yet it is clear that there is clear lack of “killer application”. Bharti, is anyway, at the forefront to demand spectrum for 3G services, based on the premise that there would large number of post paid customers to sign up for the same. Streaming Internet would sound fanciful anyway.

Then Mr Sunil Bharti is rich and awash with cash. He decided, initially to bid for Airport modernization- he burnt his fingers in the labyrinthine files that are so beloved of the bosses up. Given their penchant to talk through media, it was clear that the government was not really upfront about it all.

Direct to Home platform would assure these operators of a steady stream of revenue in the future- they may even be able to co-brand their services. For example, with a DTH, an Airtel landline free! Well, perhaps it would take someone like Sachin to convince us about the merits for signing up with Airtel.