Tata Teleservices launches 3G-enabled TV services

Television on the move: Mr Anil Sardana (left), Managing Director, Tata Teleservices, and Mr Lloyd Mathias, Chief Marketing Officer, at the launch of Photon TV in the Capital on Wednesday. — Ramesh Sharma

New Delhi, Dec. 2Now you can watch television on your laptop while moving in your car. Tata Teleservices has launched Photon TV, a service that allows its high speed Internet subscribers to watch live television channels on their laptops or PCs. Existing subscribers who have the Photon Plus USB card from Tata Teleservices can avail themselves of the service by downloading an application.

The pricing is based on a subscription model. It is currently available in three different subscription options – Rs 4 a channel per month; Rs 29 a month for My Combo (a bouquet of 10 channels); and Rs 75 a month for all 40 channels on offer. In addition, the subscriber will have to pay for usage as per the subscriber's data plan. Viewing TV consumes about 1.2 MB per each minute.

For example, if a subscriber has taken the Photon Super Surf plan for Rs 1,500 a month, they can watch TV for up to 15 GB (enough for about 160 hours of TV viewing a month) without any additional fee. But usage beyond 15 GB will cost 50 paise per MB. Tata Teleservices is deploying third generation technology to offer the service on its existing spectrum. Tata Photon Plus users get live TV feed from various sports, news, entertainment and regional channels, and to watch recorded TV shows from the library (viz Coffee with Karan, Zoom, Pogo, etc), movies, music and videos on demand.

“We have moved mobility another few giant steps along the evolutionary path, with the launch of Photon TV today. This innovative product underlines the technological superiority of the Photon technology, which has become the rage amongst Internet-users,” Mr Anil Sardana, Managing Director of Tata Teleservices Ltd, said.

Ties up with Apalya

The company has partnered with Apalya Technologies for putting together the platform including dealing with content providers.

“Today, with the technological innovation and breakthrough in mobile broadband services space, we have again taken the first-mover advantage by launching Photon TV, an innovative application and service that will appeal to a wide cross-section of our user base,” Mr Lloyd Mathias, Chief Marketing Officer of Tata Teleservices, said.