Siti Cable makes good progress in subscriber-wise billing

The online 'Own Your Customer' management system to cable operators enables real-time access to subscriber billing, payment, account statement, activation, deactivation, etc.

BestMediaInfo Bureau | Delhi | March 15, 2013

Bolstered by the momentum of the DAS (Digital Addressable System) mandate, Siti Cable has seamlessly installed about 2.5 million set-top boxes (STBs) in its markets. In DAS Phase I cities it has about 2 million STBs and in about 0.5 million digital cable subscribers in the Phase II cities where it is present.

With multi-fold increase in subscriber numbers in its Phase 1 cities, Siti Cable has provided the online application 'Own Your Customer' (OYC)  management system to cable operators enabling real-time access to subscriber billing, payment, account statement, activation, deactivation, upgrading, downgrading, packaging, etc. It helps the cable operator to collect the monthly subscription subscriber-wise for every STB installed.

The company has collected the monthly subscription revenue from its Delhi and Mumbai markets starting November 2012. Initially there was resistance from the ground on subscription collection but with an aggressive education drive, the progress on billed amount collected in Delhi is quite significant and in Mumbai it's steady. The company is far ahead of other operators in terms of subscriber-wise billing and collection.

In Kolkata, the company is yet to collect subscriber-wise subscription revenue due to undue competitive pressure on the ground and delay in digitisation.

The company estimates that by beginning of next quarter, billing and collection will be in line once the subscriber chooses the channels/packages of his choice and pay accordingly.

In Phase II cities the company will initiate genre-wise analogue channels switch-off as soon as the notification is received from the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting, which will eventually help in augmenting the process of digitisation in 16 cities where it is present. The pace of STB seeding in these cities will go up in the coming days.

To facilitate the subscriber for the switch-over in Phase II cities, Siti Cable is offering STBs at a subsidised rate. In the near future prices of STBs will go up owing to the custom duty hike announced in the budget and will be offered at cost. The company is aggressively seeding STBs in its Phase II markets so that subscribers can continue watching cable TV even after the digitisation deadline. Consumers receiving channels in Phase II cities via analog cable have to switch to digital STBs by March 31, 2013, as per the government mandate for complete digitisation of cable TV networks in the country.

Info@BestMediaInfo.com

Info@BestMediaInfo.com