Shri R K Upadhyay, Honorable CMD, BSNL inaugurated BSNL Hello TV for the data card users of BSNL and customers of ITZ Cash Card across the country at BSNL Corporate Office on 17 Jan 2012. Speaking on the occasion, Shri. Upadhyay elaborated on the benefits of this service to the customers, This service provides entertainment to BSNL users while they are on move on laptop, tablets and PC.

Paris, June 01, 2011: PK Online (PK), a digital media company incubated by Percept Limited, and Alcatel Lucent has signed a collaboration agreement to expand the distribution of digital entertainment content to subscribers across India. PK will use Alcatel-Lucent’s Digital Media Store (DMS) to enhance its web and mobile entertainment service, which is offered to consumers through partnerships with telecom service providers such as BSNL, MTNL and Airtel.

With more than 1.2 billion people, India provides an enormous potential audience for PK’s entertainment content – everything from Hindi Movies to Regional language spectacles and live TV on mobile. PK’s services like Adchakra, Cinecurry, HelloTV and 51010 dial-a-video has experienced rapid growth – nearly 300 percent last year, and to meet this increased demand they needed a robust digital media platform that could meet the demanding requirements of Mobile and Web service pvirroviders.

Alcatel-Lucent’s Digital Media Store simplifies the distribution of applications and multimedia content across any network to any connected device – PC, Mobile Phone or TV. With DMS, PK now has a cost-effective and secure solution that is easy to expand, and gives service providers the flexibility to offer video, audio and games to their subscribers – over wireless or wireline networks, easily and profitably.

As importantly, DMS will enable the service providers offering PK services to establish customized and personalized storefronts and portals, supported by merchandizing tools that include the ability to cross-recommend and cross-sell content based on subscriber interests and buying behaviour. While DMS will provide both PK and service providers increased earning potential, it will also aid bottom lines by reducing content pilfering through the use of a digital-rights-management mechanisms.

Commenting on the deal, Mr. Viraj Malik, MD & CEO, PK Online said, “Content will be key to building internet penetration in India. We were looking at a scalable service which can keep pace with the great growth we experienced last year; one that can provide us with the capability to create services across mobile phones, tablets and laptops. Our deployment of Alcatel-Lucent’s Digital Media Store will provide an all-in-one solution to the challenges service providers face in terms of content, platform and business operations.”

Mr. Munish Seth, President and Managing Director, Alcatel-Lucent India noted, “Our Digital Media Store will enable PK Online to introduce very attractive services, and enable them to keep pace with changing market demands – driven by the need for an ‘it’s-all-about-me’ user experience. Building on this cooperation, Indian consumers will soon be able to move from place to place and device to device freely, getting their multimedia content whenever and wherever they want it.”

This first-of-its-kind interactive ‘Brand Video Short Code’ can be used on any 3G enabled handset for access to a particular brand by just placing a video call.
Brands can use this service to create another channel of engagement with their customers and provide them engaging video content and can have a quick call to action in case customers wants to know more or purchase the product.
Speaking on the Launch of ‘Brand Video Short Code’, Daman Soni, VP Sales & Marketing, Percept Knorigin said, “Video calling is a killer application for Advertising and can provide pull as well as push based communication between brands and consumer. In today’s business environment which demands a higher degree of mobility than ever before, Adchakra’s platform will offer users an unrivalled service of video conferencing and Brand solution that helps achieve higher levels of efficiency and productivity. We would be taking this offering to the market in the coming year and would be working on identifying multiple innovative applications of this technology.”
The 3G subscriber base in India is expected to grow exponentially in coming years and apart from high speed internet access, video calling could be one of the key service offerings across industries.

What sets this service apart is its no frills attached features. The user doesn’t have to download any application, access any portal, activate any special service and most importantly won’t be paying any data usage or download charges. All that is needed is a handset with video calling facility and a BSNL 3G connection.

After subscribers make a video call to 51010, they will be greeted by a menu which can be operated through the phone keypad. The user can then choose Live TV and watch popular channels like Aaj Tak, Star News etc or videos from different genres like music videos, Comedy clips, sports, kids, devotional and health & fitness.

Subscribers can also dial 5101000 and choose from the various subscription packs. Users can choose to pay Rs. 25 for 15 minutes of usage with a validity of 7 days or can go the long haul by paying Rs. 299 with unlimited usage for 30 days.

Shri Sachin Pilot, Hon’ble Minister of State for Communication and Information Technology inaugurated three new Value Added Services “Dial-a-Video” for 3G mobile customers of BSNL across the country at Chandigarh on 10 April, 2011. Speaking on the occasion Sh. S.S. Sirohi, Chief General Manager Telecom, Punjab Circle elaborated on the benefits of these services to the customers and their potential of generating huge revenues for BSNL. These ‘first of its kind’ services in entertainment are targeted at youth and professional segment of the market.

BSNL is bringing these ‘state-of-art’ services in collaboration with its technology partners M/s PK Online. Mr. Sirohi expressed hope that with appropriate pricing, marketing and business development strategy BSNL may be able to generate revenues to the tune of Rs.200-300 crores from these premium services in next 2-3 years. In addition such services not only shall enhance BSNL brand image adding much needed youthfulness but also go a long way in boosting adoption and uptake of 3G services.

In his earlier roles he has also headed telecoms sales for Infosys in West Europe and has managed sales & distribution and channel management for Nokia in the northern states of India. He is a graduate from ISB Hyderabad and NIT Rourkela and brings to PK Online, 11 years of leadership experience in the fields of technology and sales working with a number of telecom operators across countries.

Welcoming Mr. Soni and speaking on the appointment, Mr. Viraj Malik, Chief Executive Officer and MD, PK Online said, “I am happy to handover these responsibilities to Mr. Soni and have no doubts that Daman and the team will take PK Online ahead, His experience in International markets and knowledge of telecom sector will be extremely valuable for us to scale up our operations going forward”

Commenting on his appointment Mr. Daman Soni, VP Global Sales and GTM, PK Online said, “PK Online has immense potential and I am very excited to be a part of the team to take it to the next level. With a sizeable population in India accessing internet for the first time via mobile, the opportunities in delivering and monetizing content to the consumers are enormous. PK Online is rightly placed to work closely with telecom operators and engage consumers with the latest and relevant content, applications and entertainment on mobile and broadband”

As VP Global Sales and GTM for PK Online India, Mr. Daman Soni will be based out of the Gurgaon office and have overall responsibility of leading sales and marketing efforts for Telecom VAS and Digital Marketing Services; He will be instrumental for driving Go To Market strategy, new business development and enhancing the company’s presence in existing accounts.

Unlike other mobile TV services, this service is accessible from the native browsers of the phones, thereby making it reach all feature phones which can play streaming media and making it accessible to 90 percent of the multimedia handsets in the market. ‘Hello TV’ currently provides 120+ live TV channels across BSNL Network on a ‘paid’ basis. ‘Hello TV’ provides a wide variety of regional and national channels, Aaj Tak, B4U, Sun, Udaya, Gemini, Star News, Zoom, Times Now, UTV, CNN-IBN, ETV, TV9 etc. being some of the popular ones.

Commenting on this achievement, Viraj Malik, CEO and Managing Director, PK Online, said,”The company is now in the process of rolling out ‘Hello TV’ services for data card and Ipad users. Our focus is to make the service user friendly and cost effective for end users. We feel that TV is one application which can drive adoption of data in the country and the growth for all operators is heavily dependent on data.”

“BSNL has seen data volumes grow many fold after the launch of multimedia services on the network which includes TV, movies, audio and video downloads. Our endeavour is to position BSNL as a premium and cost effective provider of services like mobile TV and movies and create usage for our data services. BSNL at present has separate data tariffs for streaming services”, said NK Yadav, PGM VAS, BSNL during a recently held VAS India conference in Mumbai.

‘Hello TV’ service is available on BSNLlive which is the default destination for GPRS users in BSNL. For 3G users, the service is also available on a nation-wide short code, whereby a user can just make a video call and access live TV service. Service is slated to be launched on three more operators in the coming month.

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