Telecom Lead India: India’s four metro cities have achieved 73 percent of Cable TV digitization (including DTH users) target.
The government is looking at achieving 100 percent digitization on 31 October in Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai and Kolkata.
Ambika Soni, minister for Information and Broadcasting, is personally involved in monitoring the achievements.
Recently Information and Broadcasting Ministry has embarked on an aggressive public awareness campaign wherein a synchronized advertisement on digitization deadline was shown on more than 200 television channels.
Meanwhile, Delhi has achieved 70 percent of Cable TV digitization (including DTH users) target.
As part of meeting Cable TV Digitization’s 31st October 2012 deadline, Delhi homes have installed 14.74 lakh STBs against the target of 24.74 lakh, achieving 60 percent target. Since Delhi has 8.77 lakh DTH connections, the total digitization progress is about 70 percent.
Delhi has shown good pace of installation of STBs in the last one month and currently about 15000 STBs are being installed per day in the city.
Towards achieveing the goal of digitization , 4 National-level Multi System Operators(MSOs) viz., DEN, Digi Cable, Hathway, WWIL have also announced rates for consumer packages for Digital Cable. As per TRAI’s stipulation, the Basic Service Tier (BST) consisting of at least 100 channels for Rs 100 has also been announced by some of them.
The bouquet rates for pay channels is as below
| Name of the Package | No. of Channels | Rate in Rs. ( exclusive of taxes) |
| Digicable | ||
| Basic | 145 | 180 |
| Gold | 151 | 200 |
| Premium | 165 | 250 |
| Hathway Cable and Datacom Ltd. | ||
| Basic | 135 | 160 |
| Medium | 198 | 220 |
| Premium | 242 | 275 |
| DEN | ||
| Pack 1 | 112 | 180 |
| Pack 2 | 219 | 225 |
| Pack 3 | 235 | 270 |
| WWIL | ||
| Janta | 118 | 100 |
| Popular 1( Kolkata) | 151 | 150 |
| Popular 2( Mumbai) | 153 | 150 |
| Popular 3( Delhi) | 142 | 150 |
Consumers will also be given the option of choosing channels from a la carte list.
MSOs had earlier announced a combined promotional rate of STB for Rs 799.
MSOs have also announced consumer Care Service wherein Toll Free numbers including consumer charters have also been made available on the respective website.