Direct-to-Mobile broadcasting will entail some disruption for cable, DTH: Apurva Chandra
Speaking at an event, the MIB Secretary said that Direct-to-Mobile broadcasting will benefit broadcasters as they will get access to a new set of audiences
Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (MIB) Secretary Apurva Chandra has said that the convergence between Direct-to-Mobile and 5G Broadband will improve consumption of broadband and utilisation of spectrum in India.
Speaking at an IIT Kanpur conclave on ‘Direct to Mobile and 5G Broadband – Convergence Roadmap for India’, Chandra said that the convergence between Direct-to-Mobile and 5G Broadband will entail some changes in infrastructure besides regulation.
He also said that traditional distribution platforms will see some disruption once the Direct-to-Mobile technology is formally launched. "Once the Direct-to-Mobile technology comes, the cable and DTH sectors will be hugely impacted because that will entail broadcasting coming directly to the home without the need for an intermediary and this will be a very big change," Chandra said.
Prasar Bharati and IIT-Kanpur had collaborated last year to test the feasibility of the Next Generation Broadcast Technology Trial (Direct to Mobile Broadcasting, Convergence with 5G), Automatic Speech Recognition for Speech Subtitling (Making Broadcast Content in various Indian Languages Accessible), and Archival Content Retrieval through Audio and Text Query.
Chandra also said that Direct-to-Mobile broadcasting will also benefit broadcasters as they will get access to a new set of audiences. "This technology will definitely be a huge benefit for broadcasters because the number of consumers for a broadcast is limited to 20 crore or 21 crore households which have television. Once this direct transmission happens then I am sure the viewing habits will change and news consumption will grow manifold in the country."
He noted that India is one of the largest consumers of internet data. He pointed out that there are 1.2 billion mobile devices in the country of which 750 million are smartphones. "82% of the internet traffic is video. 1.1 million minutes of video is consumed every second which is equivalent to 60 billion DVDs in a month."
