MUMBAI: Essel Group’s direct-to-home (DTH) company Dish TV is taking Ericsson’s services to ramp up its efficiency.

The leading DTH player, which recently started offering high-definition (HD) services, said Thursday it has roped in Ericsson to improve its satellite bandwidth efficiency, increase channel capacity and offer more choice to its subscribers in HD as well as standard definition (SD). 
 
With the head-end upgrade, company claims that 7.5 million subscriber of Dish TV can enjoy new HD services. Also, viewers can access new SD channels without the need to swap existing MPEG-2 set-top boxes (STBs).

Dish TV has selected Ericsson’s EN8100 MPEG-2 and EN8190 MPEG-4 AVC encoders, and is launching a combined SD MPEG-2 and HD MPEG-4 AVC system in the same transponder space. The EN8100 and EN8190 optimise bitrates and deliver greater performance to strengthen Dish TV’s business case by maximising current bandwidth capacity. 
 
Dish TV president projects Rajiv Khattar said, “Ericsson’s solution will help us to roll out several more channels to our subscribers and to give us capacity to offer new HD services. This presents significant savings and will further enhance the consumer experience. We are pleased to partner with Ericsson, who has significant experience in this field, for this important upgrade.”

“The EN8100 offers leading levels of performance that enable operators to maximise bandwidth utilisation without the need for new customer equipment. This improvement in service, with zero disruption to the subscriber, reduces churn and attracts new customers,” said Ericsson head of compression, solution area TV Eric Baron. “We are pleased to provide Dish TV with the capability to deliver more HD and SD services to its subscribers, offering them greater choice, and in turn a further improved overall experience.”