IPTV in India - Airtel

Today, Airtel installed IPTV at my home. The service I thought was still a few years away from India is here already!

I already had telephone and broadband services from Airtel. Now i have been handed over IPTV as well. For now there is no charge for the service. this is a great move by airtel in increasing it product reach to customers.

Through this service, Airtel has currently made the following services available:
  • TV Channels (almost all channels available via cable guy)
  • Time Shift TV
  • On Demand Movie
  • Airtel Services - Accounting/ Billing
The professional who came to install the service was very courtesous and installed the service. The service uses the internet modem and a setup box to deliver signals to the TV.

Since, I use VPN and WiFi from home quite often, the configuration of my modem was slightly different than the most homes. that created a little confusion but we were able to finally configure Internet (with VPN), IPTV and voice telephone all over one single line of telephone coming to our home. Digital Convergence is really making sense now!

The quality of transmission seems the same as the one being delivered by my cableguy. So that's not going to be a reason for me to switch! The on-demand TV and recorded/ Time shift TV might be interesting..

Would i pay more for this service? Marginally more, maybe 10 - 20% more over my cable guy (who currently charges INR 250/ month)...

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Comments

kdrlx said…
when do u expect this to hit all the cities .. i m in pune and still waiting for the stupid reliance cable to come ...
April 30, 2006 at 8:13:00 PM GMT+5:30
Abhishek Kant said…
can't comment on that.. airtel folks are the best guys for this.. however, even here the IPTV is available to very limited localities in DLF, Sushant Lok and only a handful other places.
May 1, 2006 at 12:44:00 PM GMT+5:30
Anonymous said…
Can you let me know if I can watch american channels (ABC, NBC, TNT, etc.) with IPTV? Please reply to me at letterztome@gmail.com
May 11, 2006 at 7:42:00 PM GMT+5:30
Anonymous said…
Can you let me know if I can watch american channels with IPTV?
May 11, 2006 at 7:42:00 PM GMT+5:30
Anonymous said…
Can you let me know if I can watch american channels (ABC, NBC, TNT, etc.) with IPTV? Please reply to me at letterztome@gmail.com
May 11, 2006 at 7:42:00 PM GMT+5:30
Anonymous said…
Please comment more on your experience here: http://www.broadbandforum.in/Airtel-Triple-Play-t5862.html
July 29, 2006 at 9:58:00 PM GMT+5:30
Anonymous said…
I am in the IPTV industry. I wanted to know if the trial is still going on and what was your experience like.

Does the subsciber package allow you to access sites on the internet or is it more of a wall-garden approach?
August 29, 2006 at 12:15:00 AM GMT+5:30
Anonymous said…
Hi this is pravin,
Thanks for sharing your experience.It has been quite a while since you had posted this article and now you would have got a fair idea of the service.I will be grateful to you if you can share your user-experience now after using the service for a considerable period of time. Also please let me know if there is any time lag while changing between the channels.
August 29, 2006 at 4:17:00 PM GMT+5:30
Anonymous said…
Hardware cost should come down at least by 50% and there should be package with selective channels so customer will select and which should be cost effective, rest is ok
September 21, 2006 at 5:44:00 PM GMT+5:30
Unknown said…
Very Interesting and well written article, would surely want to chat more with you. I am in hyderabad and seems like airtel is offering this service here as well, wanted to know your comments after usage and what you feel about it now. Also since it is a IP based service can it be used from a different network?

Thanks
March 24, 2009 at 9:21:00 AM GMT+5:30
Vaibhav said…
Well, I think you were one of the earliest people to get this when Airtel was just trying it out. Its more mainstream now, and I am pretty happy with our connection. Here's a review: http://blog.gadodia.net/satellite-tv-in-india-airtel-iptv-vs-tata-sky-plus/
June 1, 2009 at 4:46:00 AM GMT+5:30
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