Meghbela Cable to install one million STBs in West Bengal by year-end

Kolkata based MSOs Meghbela Cable & Broadband Services has decided to bring 10 lakh set-top-boxes in the city earmarked for digitisation in phase III and phase IV.

The company has already installed around 1.26 lakh STBs in Kolkata city, where digitisation of cable TV services happened in phase I. According to the company seeding of 10 lakh STBs will involve an expenditure of Rs 110 crore.

Company already has one million subscribers in areas which fall under DAS III and IV like Haldia, Bankura, Arambagh and Hooghly. Majority of these subscribers are on analogue networks.

Meghbela Cable Chairman, Indranil Bhattacharya, said 80 per cent of the cost of the STBs would come from the local cable operators (LCOs) who would be collecting the amount from their subscribers. The remaining 20 per cent would be arranged by Meghbela through loans from banks.

The company has four digital head-ends in different parts of West Bengal with more than 7,500 km of optic fiber and coaxial networks providing cable TV services. “With a plan to expand operations at Durgapur and Purulia, we are looking at two interconnected digital head ends in Kolkata,” he said.

The company’s chairman further said the company apart from providing channel packages to the customers in Kolkata, did sign the revenue sharing agreements with LCOs and has raised the bill as per the packages chosen by subscribers from the month of August.

Source: http://cablequest.org/news/digitization-news/item/4326-meghbela-cable-to-install-one-million-stbs-in-west-bengal-by-year-end.html
Source: http://cablequest.org/news/digitization-news/item/4326-meghbela-cable-to-install-one-million-stbs-in-west-bengal-by-year-end.html