Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd (MTNL) introduced concept of IPTV (internet protocol television). It was named as Aksh-Tel, which was a combination of IPTV and V Spyk which is a video phone calling service. MTNL started this service in collaboration with Aksh Optifibre Ltd. In this strategic tie-up, MTNL would be providing infrastructure whereas the partner company will be focusing upon content delivery network.
Subscribers of this service will have the facility of IPTV, VOIP and 50 MB of broadband services at relatively low monthly rental of Rs 499. There won’t be any extra charge on set top box and services. Users will also be getting 50 fee calls in VOIP. This service will come quite handy for MTNL broadband subscribers. V Spyk is actually a real time videophone calling service which enables real time communication. It’s between two users on a more personalized level. Company is expecting to reach 4 million customers in two major cities of Delhi and Mumbai.
In IPTV technology, telephone lines are used to provide TV programming to viewers. IPTV will be offering 102 channels apart from broadband and telephone services. Other attractive features are video on demand and time shift television. MTNL has additional advantage of being a first mover and having four million landline users at its disposal. IPTV will be relatively cheaper than DTH services. Also, because of it being a new technology there are many opportunities to spread it and experiment with it for the purpose of improving services in the long run. Users will also be delighted to have all three major services of telephone, broadband and television coming from a single line. There are no chances of rain playing havoc with IPTV connections. Another distinct possibility is option of watching television channels on the PC without a TV tuner. IPTV is also the only service to provide time shift TV feature.
For further information, one can visit,
www.mumbai.mtnl.net.in/iptv/index.html