Digitization of television in Chennai is becoming a tough task day-by-day. The deadline for digitization has already been extended in the South Indian city four times in the past. The Madras High Court was supposed to hear the last hearing on the matter on November 29, 2012, in front of the new bench, which comprises of Justice Elipe Dharma Rao and Justice Aruna Jagadeesan.
This deadline has once again been extended by one month. Last week a new petition was filed by CMCOA, in which it had requested the government to push cable digitization in Chennai back by three months till January 2013. The first deadline was postponed till October 31, 2012 and the court hearing was due on November 5, 2012.
The next deadline was then extended till November 9, 2012 and after that till November 19, 2012. The latest deadline was of November 29, 2012. On the other hand, the installation of set top boxes (STB) in Chennai has become another challenge as customers are still not purchasing them.
Most customers are still not sure which operator to buy the STB’s from . Apart from the existing operators, there are also private players like Jack Communications and Sun Network which have considerable market presence, apart from these there is also the Tamil Nadu Government owned Arasu Cable which provide the service.
