New age broadcasting technologies like Internet Protocol Television and direct to home are likely to give a tough competition to the conditional access system, made mandatory in the four metros by the Delhi high court.

The high court on a petition filed by the three leading multi-system operators, had ordered the Centre to implement CAS in Delhi, Kolkata and Mumbai, besides the few areas in Chennai where it has not been executed yet.

"It is true that DTH is the immediate competitor to CAS. But, we are not interested in any kind of competition between the two. Let the customers observe the if's and but's of both systems and decide," an MSO operator said.

The New Cable TV Regime

Presently, CAS is implemented in very few areas in Chennai, while the two available DTH service providers, state-run Doordarshan's DD Direct and Zee Group-controlled Essel Group's Dish TV collectively have more than one million customers in their fold.

CAS has many advantages, which are not available with DTH. Through CAS set top boxes, one can receive about 300 channels, a facility which is not possible on DTH platforms.

"Besides this, we are also providing electronic programme guide, pay per view service and child lock facilities," HTMT (IncableNet) executive director Ashok Mansukhani said.

According to estimates, the first round of the CAS implementation would cover around 15 lakh (1.5 million) cable homes in southern parts of Mumbai and Delhi, besides areas in Kolkata and Chennai, a Hathway official said.

In a move to take on the potential competition from DTH and IPTV, the MSOs along with the local cable operators are planning a total revamp of their image.

We are planning a series of initiatives to reach the customers and inform them of the various benefits of CAS like triple play, a feature which would soon be available, chief executive officer of Zee Group's Siti Cable Network Jagjit Singh Kohli said.

"Through triple play all channels will be delivered at a single platform," he added.

Before denotifying certain areas in the four metros from implementing CAS in 2004, the government had chalked out a specific roadmap for its execution.

"As per the roadmap each metro was divided into five-six parts, where the implementation was supposed to take place phase by phase. We expect this time the government will follow the same format," a HTMT (InCablenet) official said. CAS, introduced during the previous National Democratic Alliance regime at the Centre to provide viewers the flexibility to watch selective channels and pay only for those channels, faced much opposition from cable operators, customers and political parties as well.

Presently, about 40 per cent of television households in the country have cable TV network. The four metros represent around 10-15 per cent of total cable households.

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