BEL Bags order for Set Top Boxes

Bangalore Nov 21 (UNI) Defence electronics giant Bharat Electronics Limited has bagged a prestigious order for supply of 200,000 Set Top Boxes (STBs) from M/s.Wire and Wireless India Limited of Zee Group, Mumbai.

The STBs would be supplied with embedded conditional access software that enabled the subscriber to select and choose the pay channels that he wants to view from the bouquet offered by WWIL.

The supplies were expected to start in December matching with the Conditional Access System (CAS) roll out scheduled for January 2007.

Bharat Electronics has pioneered the design and manufacture of Set Top Boxes in India and had the capacity to meet the high volume requirements of large service providers like WWIL.

In addition to Cable STBs, BEL manufactures DTH and DTT varieties also. The metros would have CAS introduction in phases starting from January next year and service providers were gearing up to deploy the STBs in large volume BEL said in a release here today.

Established in 1954, BEL had been a market leader in Defence Electronics and has strong presence in the fields of Military Communications, Radars and Sonars, Broadcasting, Opto-Electronics, Electronic Warfare, Tank Electronics, Telecommunication&Switching and Strategic Components with about 350 products in its portfolio.

BEL had been using the technologies and skills acquired over the years to design a number of civilian products such as Electronic Voting Machines to meet specific needs and fulfil niche requirements. Development of Set Top Box (STB) was one such initiative BEL had undertaken.

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