Indiatimes, a conglomerate of Online services has entered into a tie-up with Dish TV to offer a mobile interactive service on the DTH platform. The service named ‘Mobile Active’ would allow mobile users to preview VAS content on TV and thus try it before downloading on to their mobiles.
The service would offer all sorts of mobile content previews ranging from ringtones, wallpapers, text alerts, contests. The service would serve a very big purpose of making the VAS users feel comfortable regarding their purchases as they would be able to try out the content on-screen.
According to Salil Kapoor, COO, Dish TV: “Gone are the days when TV was called an idiot box, we are in the process of creating a whole new user experience of TV viewing by offering a plethora of services including information, connectivity with internet services, along with entertainment. We are pleased to join hands with Indiatimes.com, India’s leading portal, to bring yet another novel service, Mobile Active, to our 5.7 million subscribers. Mobile Active is our latest initiative to drive convergence in the entertainment and communication space. Our main focus is on empowering our young customers and giving them an easy user interface to download mobile VAS products.”
The DTH operators like Dish TV in recent past has buzzed the media regarding different tie-ups panning from content tie-up to payment services. The DTH industry in India has embraced the digital content and VAS services in a big way. This service additions may finally help the industry to come out of bleak profitability and leverage their subscriber strength to drive additional revenues.
Airtel launches Recharge Vouchers for mobi-internet
Bharti Airtel seems to have got a knack for pre-paid uses as this entails the company to get advance payment against the uses and as such also brings more volume growth. The company has launched two recharge vouchers for mobile internet usages.
This is a significant development as till date recharge vouchers were available only for Schemes or overall prepaid usages. The dedicated vouchers for mobi-internet would thus provide the pre-paid subscribers to cap their monthly outgo on internet usages.
The vouchers would be available in two denominations i.e. Rs. 95 per 100 Mb and Rs. 26 per 15 MB. This initiative signals the aspirations of telcos to cater the VAS and internet demands of mobile subscribers in India. A few years ago telcos started the tradition of recharge vouchers for callerback tunes which really helped in increasing penetration for such services.
According to Shashi Arora, CEO – Bharti Airtel Limited, “As an industry leader, Airtel has always led the market in ushering affordability and convenience for its customers. This initiative marks our strategic intent to drive affordability in mobile internet connectivity and add value for our Prepaid customers. We are confident that our latest internet recharge offer over electronic platform will help our customers control their internet usage and gain better value for money.”
This initiative signals the competitive tactics used to attract mobi-internet subscribers before the 3G makes in-road into telcom scenario in India.
