The Cable Television across the three metropolitan cities, Delhi, Kolkata, and Mumbai has been mandatorily  digitized starting from today 00 hours. This means the Analog  signal used in cable wires would be replaced by Digitial Signal.
In Chennai, the Madras High Court has stayed the decision till Monday for the order on digitization for Chennai.
“The digitalization will begin at 12 midnight,” an information and broadcasting ministry official told IANS.
As of now, 91 percent digitization of the cable TV network has been achieved, and along with Direct to Home, it has touched 94 percent.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has slammed the move to go digital. She hit out at the central government Tuesday, terming the digitization move as “unnecessary expense” thrust upon residents of Kolkata.
With the digitalization of the signals, the analogue cable signals will cease in the four metros from midnight Wednesday to give way to digital addressable systems (DAS).
Of the four metros, New Delhi has achieved 95 percent digitization, and along with DTH the percentage adds up to 97. Mumbai has achieved 100 percent digitization.
Kolkata has achieved 83 percent digitization of the cable TV network, and along with DTH the figure is 85 percent, an official statement said Wednesday.
In Chennai, cable TV digitization has been static at 62 percent. However, with DTH the percentage has touched 86 percent.
The digitization move has resulted in a huge jump in the number of set top boxes, a mandatory requirement to catch the digital signals, in the four cities.
The number of DTH subscribers in Mumbai has gone up to 7.53 lakh, in Delhi it is 10.17 lakh, Kolkata has 3.20 lakh subscribers and Chennai has 7.11 lakh subscribes so far, the statement said. The number of DTH subscribers in the four metro cities has touched 28.01 lakh.
DEN Networks, a leading multi-system operator, said in Delhi 50,000 set top boxes were installed on Wednesday alone.
A control room set up in the ministry has been flooded with calls, especially from consumers, with queries on the cost of set top boxes and their availability.
“The Control Room has so far received more than 4,000 calls from Oct 19 onwards. On Tuesday, almost 500 calls were received,” it said.
The Madras High Court Wednesday put on hold the digitisation process of cable television viewing from analogue mode here till Nov 5. The central government had mandated switching over to digital mode from Oct 31.
The petition against the central government’s decision was filed by Chennai Metro Cable TV Operators Association seeking an extension of the deadline on the grounds of lack of sufficient number of set top boxes.
According to a representative of the association, the Court will hear the case Nov 5.
Cable television operators said around four million set top boxes were needed out of which only 160,000 were available in the city and a majority of the viewers would suffer if the deadline was not extended.
The central Government mandated that cable television broadcast should go digital from Oct 31 in four metropolitan cities – Chennai, Mumbai, New Delhi and Kolkata.
According to industry estimates, there were around four million cable connections in Chennai. On the other hand, only 250,000 set top boxes were issued apart from the 600,000 direct to home connections.