For the past 2 years, the Indian Govt. has been discussing implementation of direct-to-home television (DTH) in India. In 2002, the Govt. issued DTH guidelines. And for the past 6 months, there have been murmurs of "specifications" for set-top-boxes for DTH.

So what's holding back DTH in India?

The I&B ministry had referred to the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) the issue of specifications for set-top boxes (STBs) for DTH in 2002. In February 2003, BIS was asked to form a task force to prepare recommendations for STB specifications for DTH television. In normal circumstances, this process would be completed in 3-4 months (since the task force's recommendations would be reviewed by the 'main committee' of BIS, who in turn would discuss with the Ministry officials and finally freeze specifications).

However because of basic flaws in approach, the exercise has extended all reasonable deadlines. What's worse is that even today, there is no clear roadmap.

DTH for the un-initiated
Using a KU band satellite, a broadcaster (or broadcasting platform) can deliver a 'bouquet' of channels so that the (powerful) signal is delivered directly to the viewer via compact, powerful dishes & STBs.

DTH offers 'freedom' from cable operators - to both viewer as well as broadcaster. Naturally, DTH comes at an additonal cost to viewer. However, this additional cost ensures that the DTH viewer has more purchasing power. And most important, DTH offers direct addressability between broadcaster/advertiser & viewer.

The Issue is Inter-operability for the Govt.
The Govt.'s guidelines specify that STBs should be inter-changeable between different DTH service providers. More specifically, the policy framed by the Govt. dictates that STBs should adhere to an "open architecture" that will permit any consumer to change over from one DTH platform to another by just replacing the "smart card".

However, industry experts feel that inter-operability (using the same STB for receving signals from multiple DTH platfroms) is not commercially viable. In fact, some go so far as to question the need for such a feature.

Given its capital-intensive nature, DTH has been globally implemented as a monopoly or at best as a 2-player scenario. In this backdrop, "open architecture" certainly seems unwarranted as it is based on the presumption that there would be several DTH service providers in India. Such a scenario is conspicuous by its very 'rare' prevalence worldwide even in the most wealthy countries.

For the Industry it is Commercial Viability
At a recent meeting held between industry & BIS, executives from Star, Thomson & CETMA (apex body of Indian consumer electronics manufacturers) proposed that inter-operability or open architecture would make DTH service in India commercially unviable. The reason? Because open architecture STB would make it difficult for a would-be DTH service provider to subsidize & therefore more expensive for the consumer. Exclusivity & the resultant "captive consumers" for each STB is an incentive for subsidizing.

While BIS officials privately admit that open architecture will be difficult to implement, they are constrained to work within the Indian Govt.'s policy framework. Naturally, the deadline for freezing technical specifications will be extended.

In short, unless the Indian Govt. steps down from its high horse, prepare for another long wait before DTH comes to India!