MUMBAI: With the Indian government approving the ordinance on pan India digitisation of cable network by 2014, Cisco is betting big on the cable market in the country and sees tremendous potential for its Service Provider (telco) business.
The key focus of Cisco‘s Service Provider division is to enable service providers (wireless, wire line, cable service providers) to monetise their investments in technology and drive new revenue streams without incurring additional capital expenditure. The proposed digitisation will help cable operators in India to transform into lifestyle-experience providers and help enable services like residential TV, HDTV, gaming, digital video recording, video on demand and future ‘connected home‘ services to retail consumers.
Cisco claims to have several products and solutions that benefit cable service providers like Cisco Cable Digital TV solutions, Cable Video, Cable Separable Security solutions and Cisco Videoscape, a solution that lets consumers combine content from multiple sources, social media, communications, and mobility to create an immersive TV experience. Cisco has also recently announced a Wireless TV Solution, which allows consumers to watch TV in virtually any room in the house, wirelessly.
Cisco India and SAARC Sr VP, Service Provider Sanjay Rohatgi said, "The onset of digitisation would help the cable service provide sector enhance quality of services and increase their subscription revenue by offering plethora of innovative and interactive services. Moving to a digital platform will also allow cable and Internet service providers to curb losses due to piracy. Cisco‘s cable digitisation solutions provide the massive scaling, capital and operational cost optimisation that cable operators need, to transition to a digital platform."
Rohatgi further added, "Cisco‘s Service Provider business has been a key contributor to Cisco India‘s overall revenues. We have been working with leading service providers in India to enable them to transition to an IP NGN (Next-Generation Network) architecture and offer varied services to consumers across platforms. With the introduction of new technologies like 3G and 4G, the Indian telecom market offers tremendous potential to drive business growth."
In India, Cisco is working with cable service providers to help them transition to a digital platform and enhance consumer experience, the company said.
Gujarat Telelinks Private Limited (GTPL) is one such customer that will deploy more than 300,000 next-generation digital set-top boxes from Cisco over the next 12 months in Gujarat, West Bengal, Maharashtra and Jharkhand.
