Hinduja Group's Headend-In-The-Sky (HITS) podium NXTDIGITAL has signed first its kind infrastructure sharing agreement with adversary multi-system-operator (MSO) Siti Networks.

Siti Networks is one of India's largest MSO with an associated customer base of over 8.5 million and the deal will see two conservative competitors share infrastructure, heralding a new era of association in the digital platforms space.

Vynsley Fernandes, MD & CEO at NXTDIGITAL, states, “With significant investments in technology, our HITS platform was designed to facilitate MSOs deliver digital content across India.”

The agreement will allocate Siti Networks to carry their services in markets where conventional connectivity relics a challenge. NXT will receive a service fee from Siti for sharing its pan-India satellite delivery infrastructure.

Vynsley adds, “Our HITS PaaS (Platform-as-a-Service) solution, in line with the Government’s support for our industry, is the right step in this direction, helping MSOs save on connectivity costs whilst improving their quality of service; and we are sure this tie-up with Siti will be a landmark moment in the industry.”

The potential market for such PaaS or infrastructure sharing services in India is estimated at over 60 million cable TV subscribers; connected to around 1,000 MSOs – largely independent or regional players, who often face such cost, connectivity and quality challenges.

Anil Malhotra, CEO of SITI Networks, states, “Siti has been focusing on enhancing its operational efficiencies. With the Government approving Infrastructure sharing in our domain, this tie-up with NXTDIGITAL is a natural progression and helps us overcome the difficulties of a terrestrial network in some markets through the HITS approach.”

The move is in line with Siti's strategy of enhancing its operational efficiencies and providing high up-time and quality services to its customers across the country. Financially, this move will help Siti control its connectivity costs and deliver uninterrupted services to existing and new markets.

Anil adds, “Operational efficiencies, along with uninterrupted services, will help improve our customer experience. Both Siti and NXTDIGITAL have integrated the HITS infrastructure with SITI's existing Subscriber Management and Conditional Access systems while ensuring that the existing Capex is better sweated. Both teams have ensured all necessary testing and compliances. We do believe that evaluation of more such Infrastructure sharing options forms an integral part of the Government's Digital India Strategy and would help in the spread of other services like Broadband to the last mile faster.”

SITI will influence the HITS infrastructure to bring its signals to its local cable operators (LCOs), thus providing its services to semi-urban and rural subscribers while also expand its trail across the country through satellite.

NXT can assist digital services in the most remote areas with services extending to the Andaman & Nicobar Islands, Lakshadweep Islands, the far north-eastern reaches of India, through to Kargil, Ladakh, and Jammu & Kashmir.

Through the PaaS model, NXT expects to see MSOs faced with challenges of mounting connectivity costs and quality transition to a vigorous and independent sustainable model with the better eminence of service.