Digisitation to fetch 6x more revenues: Hathway

In an interview with CNBC-TV18, K Jayaraman, chief  executive officer and managing director of Hathway Cable & Datacom Limited spoke about the cable digitization bill and the road ahead for the comapany.

Below is the edited transcript of the interview. Also watch the accompanyig video. Q: Digitisation deadline has been postponed to June 30, 2012 versus March 31. Do you expect digitization to take place in the top four metros by June 30? A: Certainly. The ordinance, which was signed by honourable President of India, is pending and will have to be approved by the members of the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha. I hope that it would be approved by the members of Parliament in the current winter session. The Bill was tabled yesterday in Parliament, which got adjourned, but I think in the coming weeks it will be approved. Q: Has Hathway Cable started implementing the required capex? A: Yes. On a voluntary basis, Hathway was the pioneer in doing voluntary digitization irrespective of the notification. We have almost covered 35% of Mumbai and about 15-20% of Delhi by way of set top box penetration. Substantial portion of voluntary deployment has already begun. For the balance requirement, we have inventory of set top boxes.  We also have ordered additional 1.3 million set top boxes, with an additional provision for another 0.5 million. Committed set top box order is 1.8 million and another 0.5 million will be triggered depending up on demand-supply situation. Q: What is the amount you are investing in digitization and how would you procure the funds? A: Not only set top box, but also there is more capacity addition. We plan to increase the number of channel availability to 400, as cable digital can only give maximum number of channels because we don