Airtel announced its own version of DTH (Direct to Home) for Indian customers just before Diwali. With its launch, customers are very much spoiled for choices. Airtel named its DTH service as digitalTV (yes, that’s with a small ‘d’). Like the Reliance BIG TV service, Airtel will also make use of the latest MPEG4 technology which promises better picture quality than the outdated MPEG2. Back in August 2008, I had posted a short article on Reliance ADAG’s BIG TV. You can read that article here.

Airtel has some major advantages over its rivals and the most notable is a bigger dish compared to the others. A bigger dish guarantees better reception, even during bad weather. As most of you must be aware that DTH reception suffers terribly from poor reception during heavy rains. This is true for every DTH service all over the world. Another plus for Airtel is that it provides an ‘Universal Remote‘ i.e, a single remote which works for both your TV set and the STB (Set Top Box). So, no more juggling with multiple remotes.

The digitalTV STB also looks stunning and is reportedly much more advanced than its counterparts. I can’t vouch for the authenticity of this statement but that’s what the word is at this moment. The plans come across as being a bit pricey but there are various top-up packages and picking an affordable combination won’t be a big problem. Their cheapest package comes at a price of Rs. 2000/- with 12 months of Value Pack FREE. One can combine this with Hindi Plus & ESPN Plus to pretty much have all the popular channels for Rs. 3128/-

Airtel is also the first DTH provider to offer free Worldspace radio channels to its customers. Its not an essential addition but a good one, none the less. In this age of tough and fast competition, any value added service you provide to your customer always helps. The top-of-the-line Mega Pack, which consists of all channels offered by digitalTV, can be subscribed for upwards of Rs. 400/- per month. Airtel is known for good customer service and coupled with services offered, surely makes it a worth choice for those looking to get DTH service in the near future.