Direct-to-Home operator TataSky today said its services to up to 30,000 subscribers have been temporarily disrupted as the company is carrying out a technology upgrade and the same would be restored in the next two days. The company is upgrading its compression technology at its network for the enhancement of its channel carrying capacity.
“About 25,000 to 30,000 customers out of our 1 crore plus base have experienced the disturbance. It would be sorted out in the next two days. We are working on it continuously,” TataSky CEO Harit Nagpal told PTI. Earlier on March 11 this year, services to its 17,000 subscribers were disrupted due to the same reason.
“This time we have informed our customers in advance. We have been running scrolls for the last 10 days informing subscribers about the possible signal problems and from last three days we are also running films on that,” he added. Nagpal said TataSky has opted for the period between World Cup and IPL for the technological upgrade.
Asked whether the company’s customer care was geared up to handle complaints this time, Nagpal said: “We cannot send our team to everyone’s home, but we are working on that.” This time the TataSky has deployed SMS services and provision of missed call to alert the company, he said.
Last month, TataSky customers had vent their ire on micro-blogging site Twitter alleging that the helpline numbers were not working. DTH companies in India are facing the problem of scarce availability of transponders and it affects their platform’s carrying capacity. “TataSky has spent around Rs. 900 crore on upgrading its set-top-boxes from MPEG 2 to MPEG 4 to carry more channels. We have changed around 6 million boxes and spent USD 24 on each STB,” Nagpal said.
TataSky, a joint venture between Tata group and media major Star, has over 10 million active connections and around 3/4 connections are on MPEG 4. It offers over 300 channels.
