Now DTH service from Airtel, offers 175 channels

New Delhi, Oct 7: On Tuesday, Oct 7 Bharti Airtel, the country's leading telecom company announced the launch of its Direct to Home (DTH) satellite TV service 'Airtel Digital TV' which will be available across India from Thursday, Oct 9.

''Indian DTH industry is an exciting space with only three per cent penetration and an expected rapid growth of subscriber base in the coming year...currently, the overall market size is of 225 million customers and we think it is the right time for the company to enter the market,'' Bharti Airtel CEO and Joint Managing Director Manoj Kohli told reporters here. The service, offering 175 channels, will be available to customers through 21,000 retail points, including retail relationship centres in 62 cities across the country.

The TV-viewing market is vastly opening up and big players are foraying into the DTH market. The existing players include Reliance BigTV, Tata Sky and Dish TV.

UNI