The Hindu Business Line : <I>Pay for your air ticket via TV </I>

After e-commerce and m-commerce, telecom operators are now looking at introducing t-commerce, which will give consumers the option to buy movie tickets, airline tickets and other goods through their television. The platform is being planned as part of the IPTV (Internet Protocol TV) bouquet and allows subscribers to use their credit card to buy goods using TV sets instead of a PC or mobile phones.

The first to kick-start the service is Aksh and Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd for its IPTV subscribers in Delhi and Mumbai. The other state-owned company Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd is also in line to offer similar services.

Speaking to Business Line, Mr K S Choudhari, Managing Director, Aksh, said, "We are tying up with the payment gateway service providers to offer t-commerce. This will be secure transaction and will not connect to the World Wide Web at any point of time. We will have our own portal which will offer the service." Aksh and MTNL have already launched IPTV services in Delhi.

"IPTV is just one part of the services that is being offered by Aksh and MTNL. Going forward we are looking at introducing new services like video conferencing and online gaming. The services will take communication and broadcasting services to a higher level," said Mr Choudhari.

Set-top boxes

Aksh, which started off as an optical fibre cable company, is also planning to manufacture set-top boxes for these services in India. Market analysts pointed out that such interactive services will bring back subscribers to take fixed line telephone connections.

"We are expecting a lot of people who had given up fixed line phones to take a connection to avail themselves of these services, especially the corporate clients," said Mr Choudhari.

Video call facility, for instance, allows subscribers to see each other on TV while talking to each other. IPTV itself allows users to pause, fast forward and rewind live and recorded content stored on a remotely located server by the service provider.

All a consumer needs to avail these services is a broadband connection and a television set.

The viewer's TV connects to a set-top box that decodes the IP video and converts it into standard television signals.

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