First of all I’m a Airtel DTH user for almost 3+ years. Now for all of you people who are eager to take home a digital TV set-top box with high expectations in mind that you would now be watching TV hassle free - at this instant please be free yourselves of the idea because the moment you be a DTH customer you would be paying a lump some amount of money for just not getting disconnected from your DTH service whatever be the provider.
Now that I don’t have practical knowledge about TATA Sky or Dish TV networks I sure have knowledge about Airtel DTH service - for my connection(me being a customer who has been paying loyally each month for continuing the subscription - well with DTH you don’t have any other options either, for any month when you are out of the place for maybe a month where you watch TV.
The DTH providers would advice you to disconnect and switch off the set-top box but at the end of the month they would send you a notice via SMS that ’your subscription is about to expire and if you don’t recharge within a specific date you would be disconnected of the service’ and would need some fees to resume services - what the hell for I don’t know because for once if you can’t pay the recharge amount in time.
They would be threatening to disconnect you and you know you have to pay that amount to keep the connection, if you are out of station at the time of schedule recharge) I didn’t getting any special discount amount with any recharge till date - while Airtel is the only corporate connection provider for me (well I have been using 4 other different connection for different services for some time now) who haven’t given any good discounts, minimum amount to be recharged in my case is Rs.300/- for which nowadays the recharge validity has been reduced from 30 days to 25 days now.
With no more than 2-3 serious packages for this recharge amount - for me, I can’t watch any other channels of my wish - sports pack is costly, about Rs.30-32/- the least per month and you have to continually pay that amount with your base monthly amount of at least Rs.280-290/- per month and with already that amount on board - they will calculate a daily burn rate and at that basis they will tell you to top-up more per month if the rate exceeds the rate they have set per day, "I can’t talk on other service providers on this respect".
After all that if you are eager to learn more, here it is - as all DTH connection providers use national satellites(INSAT/PSLV etc.) to provide connections to subscribers, even it rains a little you would see an error message showing ’connections are disrupted’ as because rain causes signal interference at the dish-which serves to provide receiving antenna for the signal you are supposed to receive for the service.
Now serious storm may even damage your dish-antenna causing permanent trouble for you - so here is my strong suggestion in this context "don’t use dish service for TV" - if possible please avoid doing the same.
Final verdict is here, if possible please contact to the local ’Cable TV’ providers, if not necessary don’t go for any strictly privitised DTH service. Our good old ’Cable TV’ providers as I expect, would come to your rescue here and would be able to deliver ’moderately good service’ and much more hasslefreeness - just fill up the CAF.
Necessary to continue watching TV through ’Cable TV’ providers and they will supply digital connection(as per new TRAI regulatory) through DSL wires - which are very much resistant to interference and set-top box required(a one time some Rs.1k-2k/- payment) to change digital signal received to analog signal suitable for your TV to process so that you can watch TV.
So tune to your favourite channels and you needn’t worry much about the bill as it would be pretty much the same amount as it was when you had been watching TV with, before DTH service came along.
Please don’t forget to rate this review according to it’s usefulness and please comment, so that I can provide more useful reviews on my part to help you assist on different matters.