Direct-to-home service providers, who together have a customer base of over 10 million households, as per industry estimates, are all now offering recharge facilities through mobile. Increased adoption owing to this may help greater familiarity with mobile payment systems and help boost m-commerce.

Dish TV, India’s leading DTH service provider by customers, said it has signed up with Atom Technologies Ltd, a mobile payment company, to offer their customers the ability to recharge their DTH accounts through mobile phones. TataSky, the second largest DTH operator, had tied up with Atom in April. Sun Direct, a unit of Chennai-based Sun TV Networks, has also signed up with the same platform for their services. Atom is a subsidiary of Financial Technologies, the company behind the Multi Commodity Exchange. The company has tied up with nine major banks and Visa cards. You Telecom, Inox Movies, Rediff (NSDQ: REDF) Shopping, Indiatimes Travel etc. are among other large merchants who have tied up with the service.

Airtel Digital TV, the DTH service from India’s largest telco, said last month that it was extending its mCheck mobile payment system also to its DTH customers. Reliance Big TV also offers mobile payment facility through its own network.