With the Indian Government setting the mandate for digitization, market reports estimate that around 60,000 set-top boxes will need to be installed every day in order to meet the initial deadline, Rajiv Kapur, Managing Director, Broadcom India, discussed his strategy to work with manufacturers and operators for the vendor’s set top box system-on-a-chip solution with Heena Jhingan
How big an opportunity is the Indian Government’s mandate on digitization for the players like you and what share of it do you think will come to you?
We have been a key player, providing cable digitization solutions around the world. We have made considerable investments in developing technologies, products and local design centers in preparation for India’s transition to digital cable. Broadcom is accelerating India’s digitization initiative and revolutionizing connected home networks in India.
With the upcoming government mandate for staged analog shut-off deadlines, India’s cable TV market is poised for a broad network upgrade providing compelling and low cost digital services. We see this as a significant opportunity to digitize the estimated 80-90 mn analog cable subscribers and help Indian operators provide them with access to a broader range of content and services.
What will your strategy be to leverage this opportunity?
We are trying to adopt a threefold approach to capture the a share in the Indian market. Firstly, our focus will be on providing manufacturers and Indian operators with cost-optimized basic digital set-top boxes for initial digitization efforts in the country. Secondly, we will continue to endeavor and extend our relationship with the Indian operators and help them expand their cable services to enable new value-added services and broadband, opening up avenues for more exciting services and revenue streams. Lastly, our portfolio of connectivity solutions offers a variety of choices to deliver connectivity to the home as well as to the LCOs—Ethernet over Coax (EoC), Data Over Cable Service Interface Specification (DOCSIS) , DOCSIS EoC, xPON, MoCa and xDSL.
We are a global player in semiconductor solutions and are focused on providing customized and highly integrated solutions that bring differentiated features and low prices to India. Our proven ability and broadband expertise brings new features and services to Indian subscribers that will provide clear benefits and advantages. For example, we are solving common user problems such as slow channel changes and disparate volume levels with our unique FastRTV fast channel change technology and automatic volume leveling technology. We are also significantly lowering power consumption in Indian homes, which is critical. Our power management controller technology also enables fast boot-up time, which supports a low power environment and positive subscriber experiences.
IPTV hasn’t taken off in a big way yet in India? How do think the mandate on digitization is likely to further the adoption of IPTV?
Cable digitization is the first step to provide value added services including HD, broadband and interactive platforms in India. Digitization can jumpstart many investments and allow operators to expand into other synergistic delivery mechanisms like IPTV for on-demand services among others. We see opportunity for basic TV services to evolve into hybrid solutions to deliver over-the-top video and services to subscriber homes.
Besides, cable TV set top boxes what is Broadcom’s focus going to be in the Indian market?
The diversity of our portfolio brings a lot of opportunities of relevance to India market. We have an established footprint in the DTH market. Besides that, we participate in the diversity of network infrastructure that drive the telecom networks and data centers. Also, our connectivity solutions across Cable Modems, ADSL, VDSL, E-PON and G-PON are deployed in India. Last but not least, our devices play in smartphone, tablet, Wi-Fi CPE, BT solutions, GPS, VoIP, 3G and LTE connectivity, all of which are relevant to India.
We provide solutions that range from the most basic SD to HD, Broadband CPE and headend platforms as well as entire system architectures.
How do you plan to strengthen your foothold in the country, especially in terms of R&D?
We have been heavily invested in India as an R&D center since 1999. We have steadily grown the role and responsibility of the India R&D teams to now have a diverse responsibility across our portfolio that includes Mobile, Wireless, Networking and STB. Today, India has grown into a large R&D center for the company and we develop technology for our global and emerging market solutions across the broadband TV markets, infrastructure and mobile and wireless industries.
