Wire & Wireless India Ltd, a Zee group company, will soon begin a countrywide rollout of headends-in-the-sky (HITS) technology.
Company also plans Rs 1,000 cr investments
MUMBAI: Wire & Wireless India Ltd, a Zee group company, will soon begin a countrywide rollout of headends-in-the-sky (HITS) technology, becoming the first major multi-system operator to do so.
The rollout will take place in tandem with digital services being taken pan-India.
Subhash Chandra, chairman, WWIL, on Tuesday told analysts the company plans to consolidate its position in the cable business by focusing on digitisation and transforming into a business-to-consumer company.
“The focus will be on the consumer and we will build all our systems, processes and delivery to provide the best television viewing experience with value-added services such as movie on demand and broadband internet. One of the key enablers of this strategy is the planned launch of HITS next month.”
HITS is a satellite multiplex service that provides cable channels to cable television operators.
Instead of a dozen dishes and antennae for catching channels from dozens of satellites, HITS combines cable stations into multiplex signals on just a few satellites. Hence, operators can pull in hundreds of channels at the local headend with lesser equipment.
Zee has been working on HITS for the last five years.
The technology will enable WWIL to roll out digital services and a sophisticated digital service network to a larger national market quickly and efficiently.
The permission for HITS platform from the information and broadcast ministry is with Dish TV, another Zee group company, but the operations will be handled by WWIL, and there will be a revenue sharing between the two. The company will spend Rs 1,000 crore in the next two years for its business expansion, which will be part-debt and part-equity-financed.
“Rs 500 crore would be raised through a rights issue which we are filing,” said Chandra.
There are 1.5 million digital cable subscribers currently and the number is growing fast. Accordingly, WWIL is ramping up on the digital side and wants to contain the analog platform. WWIL posted consolidated operating revenues of Rs 271 crore, which is a 30% growth, for the financial year 2008.
Bandwidth charges contributed Rs 93.7 crore, a growth of 70% from last fiscal. Going forward, the rise in the number of channels is expected to further increase bandwidth revenues for the company.
s_tanvi@dnaindia.net
Editor’s note: The Zee group is a co-owner of Diligent Media Corporation, which publishes the DNA.
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