By Mark Holmes

Mahesh Prasad, president of Reliance, spoke with CommunicAsia E-Daily about DTH competition in India and why telcos believe they need a satellite component to their TV service.

CommunicAsia E-Daily: What makes your satellite TV service unique in a crowded market?

Prasad: We focused on the latest technology, superior user experience, the best content mix and widespread reach for distribution and after-sales installation, which helped us achieve landmark subscriber base within a short span of our launch. The huge potential of a quality and value offering in the home entertainment service market offers us a unique opportunity to tap the strengths and synergies of our presence in the telecommunications and entertainment sectors.

CommunicAsia E-Daily: What are your subscriber targets?

Prasad: We would like to aim for 40 percent market share in five years. To that effect, we have the largest distribution network with over 100,000 retailers and a capacity for 15,000 installations per day across 6,500 towns and surrounding rural pockets. The state-of-the-art customer service center is also fully functional and ready to serve our increasing customer base every day in 11 Indian languages.

CommunicAsia E-Daily: What are your capital expenditure plans for the service, and when do you expect to be profitable?

Prasad: We usually do not disclose our capital expenditure plans, which is part of the overall [capital] expenses of Reliance Communications. What I can tell you is that we have strong economies of scale and are able to use shared infrastructure with other Reliance businesses to optimize our capital expenditure costs. So things like our prepaid billing [customer relationship management] systems and customer care facilities are shared across various business units of Reliance Communications.
We are very focused on when we will become profitable, and we have a target for breakeven and are currently on course for meeting those goals.

CommunicAsia E-Daily: What are Reliance’s aspirations in the television space? As the company is a telco, could you link an IPTV and a satellite pay-TV service?

Prasad: We have been working on an IPTV product with Microsoft, and the technical trials are completed. Once again, these are shared infrastructure for downlinking the broadcast channels. With many of the interactive services in mind, we have equipped every Big TV set-top box with a USB port which can be used for various applications, including the back channel. We have the ability to use our wirlesss or wireline network for such connectivity.

CommunicAsia E-Daily: Can the Indian market sustain the existing satellite pay-TV offers as well as ones being planned?

Prasad: The number of television households in India is approximately 125 million, of which around 75 million to 85 million homes are connected by either cable or satellite services. The balance ‑ 40 million to 50 million households ‑ are not connected at all. Besides, India’s annual television sales stand at around 14 million sets a year and is growing at a healthy pace, therefore, there is enough room for all the players to flourish. Between these two market factors and cable TV households looking for digital TV experience, the potential for DTH is huge.

CommunicAsia E-Daily: What role do you Reliance playing on the pay-TV landscape in India?

Prasad: I think there are many things that are unexplored in the Indian market as regards to satellite pay-TV. There is a lot of development happening, and in 12 months time, the satellite pay-TV landscape will be very different. Reliance Big TV is not just about television but an interactive home entertainment service that should offer much more than any other DTH or cable service. The superior technology platform would beam numerous innovative applications and value-added services never before seen on a TV set. Our expertise of offering innovative features and applications on the mobile would help us to truly harness the expertise gained over years of providing such value-added interactive services will come in handy to enrich millions of TV sets in Indian homes.