There’s one thing for sure, without last-mile connectivity, the growth of OTT (over-the-top) in India will be fairly limited. Right now, India has a long way to go with developing sufficient infrastructure to provide connectivity in every nook and corner. The government is driving the BharatNet project to enable broadband connectivity in rural panchayats of India at a fast pace, but it will still take some time before the internet reaches everywhere in the country. Even the RoW (right-of-way) issues have slowed down the deployment of OFC (optical fiber cable) and other infrastructure, due to which internet connectivity has not been able to reach every part of India. OTT platforms work via the internet. For users to stream at the highest quality possible, they need a strong and stable internet connection. That is currently not available in most rural parts of the country. In fact, even the outskirts of major cities don’t get a proper internet connection.
Broadband Needs to Reach Everywhere in India
India is a goldmine for the OTT platforms. The data rates are very cheap compared to global markets, and the potential of new customers that they can add in the next five years is in hundreds of millions. The thing is, in India, users are tired of paying heavy charges to DTH (Direct-to-Home) players who don’t even serve content on demand. With OTT platforms, there’s no trouble with NCF (Network Capacity Fee) which is really a good thing for the users. The DTH operators are still running on a decade-old business model. Tata Sky has been adopting a fresh way, but the satellite TV business is not going to be here forever, and most of us know that by now. The future is of services which provide bundled OTT subscriptions with a broadband connection.
