Airtel Digital TV joins Govt’s Make in India initiative, launches ‘Made in India’ set-top-boxes

New Delhi, July 16, 2015: Airtel Digital TV, the DTH arm of India’s largest telecommunications provider Bharti Airtel, today announced the launch of its first indigenously manufactured set-top-boxes. The Made in India set-top-boxes will be available in HD to begin with and soon all Airtel Digital TV’s set-top-boxes will be manufactured in India. With this, Airtel Digital TV has become the latest corporate to join the Govt’s Make in India initiative contributing to its growing proliferation across sectors. The launch also provides the much needed impetus to build an ecosystem that will drive indigenous manufacturing of DTH set-top-boxes empowered with production capabilities as well as technical expertise within India.

Shashi Arora – CEO, DTH/Media, Bharti Airtel said,

“We are proud to partner with the Govt’s Make in India initiative and launch indigenous set-top-boxes made in the country. With this we aim to reduce our imports and thus help drive employment and growth within the country. In the long run, cost synergies will further help us extend more benefits to our customers. The launch also re-establishes our leadership in offering world class TV viewing experience with innovations such as these”.

Rajyawardhan Singh Rathore, Minister of State (Ministry of Information and Broadcasting) said *,

“It is great that Airtel Digital TV is aligning itself with our Make in India vision as this will certainly pedal the fast gaining momentum of the initiative further. We wish the company the very best as they step ahead towards transforming the DTH industry in India with this initiative”.*

Conceptualized and designed in India, the HD set-top-boxes will be manufactured at a state-of-the-art facility in Pune (Ranjangaon) and will match global technology standards to provide the best of experience to customers. Based on an in-house design by MyBox Tech. Pvt. Ltd. (a subsidiary of Hero Electronix) and ST Microelectronics (a multinational manufacturer of Integrated Devices and semiconductors), the indigenous Airtel Digital TV HD+ set-top-box will offer the best of features including - Full HD 1080p support, MPEG-4 video with Dolby Digital Plus Surround Sound; 5X picture clarity; unlimited recording (via USB-drive); and USB-based Wi-Fi connectivity for On-demand, Anytime TV and Interactive Gaming.

Airtel Digital TV connection on these HD boxes will be available under various packages. For more details, customers can log on to www.airtel.in/digital-tv.

About Airtel digital TV

Airtel digital TV is a leading national DTH service provider offering MPEG4 & DVBS2 – currently the most advanced digital broadcasting technologies available in the world. The company offers both standard and high definition (HD) digital TV services with 3D capabilities and Dolby surround sound and is backed by a 24X7 customer care. With 460 channels & services including 27 HD channels, 4 international channels and 3 interactive services, Airtel Digital TV has introduced many firsts to the segment including a universal remote, several unique interactive applications, multi lingual EPG, and integrated anytime, anywhere recording through mobile and web. With the launch of the SD recorder set-top box, Airtel Digital TV is now the only DTH player in the country to offer recording on all types of set-top-boxes. Airtel Digital TV had over 10 million customers as on March 2015.