Broadband services provider IOL Netcom is the latest to enter the telephony arena. Close on the heels of Shyam Telecom gaining spectrum for its CDMA roll-out, IOL has teamed up with MTNL as a ‘lead consortium partner’ to offer CDMA mobile services in Mumbai and Delhi. The firm plans to…

HFCL Infotel, part of the telecom equipment manufacturer, HFCL Group, has stated it will roll out its IPTV services in Punjab in the next three months. HFCL Infotel COO, GD Singh, states they aim to have a subscriber base of 20,000 in the first phase and has tied up with…

A TRAI release states broadcasters have agreed to adopt a non-discriminatory price regime on the composition of bouquets and pricing of channels for IPTV services. Broadcasters have also broadly agreed that the rates of bouquets and a-la-carte rates of pay channels offered for IPTV services would be same as being…

Aksh Optifibre has tied up with BSNL to provide IPTV services over the state owned telcos network. BSNL currently has a total landline network of 40 million across India and 6 million in the north. The 20 cities covered will be across North India including the states of Jammu and…

More projected pain for broadcasters as Telco’s looking to offer IPTV services have called on TRAI to fix channel prices reports ET, almost a month after DTH operators did the same. Currently, broadcasters are to charge DTH operators up to 50 percent of their Cable TV bouquet price. With the…

Aksh Optifibre, MTNL’s IPTV partner, has inked a deal with Eros International. Recently Aksh had launched an IP based video calling service in partnership with MTNL and we have previously covered their plans to do a simultaneous release of Bollywood movies over IPTV. The simultaneous release plan appears to have…

Perhaps answering critics who argue its content line-up isn’t compelling enough, P2P TV platform Joost will start showing Premier League soccer in eight more territories, including the important Middle East region, after extending its deal with rightsholder Nimbus Sports. A fortnight back, the London-HQ’d service added to its US baseball…

Well, mobile appears to be the way to go in India. Time Broadband and Stanton Technologies, which had recently announced a joint venture, have entered the Chinese market with a deal with Potevio, a Chinese Government owned entity, the company announced at Convergence India on Thursday. The Potevio deal gives…

In a rather surprise move, Joost has won the rights to show on-demand highlights of English Premier League matches across the Indian subcontinent. It appears rights were given by Nimbus Sport, a sports rights agency which won the mobile and internet rights to matches in parts of Asia, Middle East,…

With IPTV not having really taken off in India (yet), content aggregators are looking overseas for monetization: Time Broadband has signed an MOU with Malaysia’s Stanton Technologies to offer Bollywood entertainment and news content. Stanton has IPTV rights to D’Podcast services from mobile operator DiGi Telecommunications. They’ll be offering 120-150…

MTNL has been sitting on its IPTV venture for well over a year, and here’s something that doesn’t help things: the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India has sent the public sector telecom operator a letter seeking clarifications on why it has violated license conditions - apparently, a telco with a…

BSE listed Goldstone Technologies has launched commercial operations of its IPTV services in Thailand, in partnership Synap Media & Infotech, the company has informed the BSE. The Synap Media & Infotech group has a presencein the hospitality segment in Thailand. Goldstone has also signed distribution agreements for France, Belgium, Spain,…

Bharti Airtel and Reliance Communications have received the go-ahead to roll out IPTV services, reports TMCnet. We’d reported that Airtel intends to launch services in the first quarter of the next fiscal. They have around 1000 customers in the NCR (Delhi, Gurgaon, Noida) region, and will focus on North India…

[by Cerius Shah] Big news for cable TV operators: the I&B ministry, based on TRAI’s recommendations, has approved cable TV operators to provide IPTV services. Importantly, this authorizes broadcasters who are currently delivering signals via cable and DTH to distribute over IPTV as well. According to this ET report, cable…

The Pyramid Saimira Group has plans for a new media subsidiary, P S Saminathan, MD of the BSE listed entertainment company company told Business Standard. The company intends to launch an IPTV service, and all new media business will come under a separate subsidiary, which will also include company’s radio…

Gartner reiterates something that I’ve said time and again - that IPTV will struggle in India. The reasons that Gartner gives for this are:—Cable TV users pay almost half of what digital subscribers pay, so they’ll have a lower propensity to shift.—Low broadband penetration will inhibit IPTV uptake; mass broadband…

Reliance Communications has tied up with Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) for its IPTV venture, which is launching in March next year: Reliance will pay Microsoft about $500 million in license fees to use its IPTV service software, which delivers HD video over phone lines to home TV sets, reports AP. Microsoft…

“I think the opportunity for broadband lies in offering it along with PayTV (Ed: i.e. not IPTV, which is the other way round). I don’t think broadband is being marketed well. Our license (DTH) does not forbid us from providing broadband but the condition is that we will have to…

Bharti Airtel is waiting for legal and regulatory clarity before rolling out IPTV services. Puneet Garg, GM IPTV for Bharti Airtel, speaking at the India Digital Networks Summit said that the investments in infrastructure have been made and company hopes to roll out services in a couple of months, beginning…