It’s not just the private sector that comes up with cool technology announcements these days. The government, as a part of Narendra Modi’s Digital India initiative, seems to be all-in on technology itself. After setting up wifi at train stations and launching websites to set up companies quickly, the government is now bring in Doordarshan right into your homes – without any internet.
Doordarshan has started broadcasting free TV to mobile phone in 16 cities. Mobile TV can be received in and around these cities using dongles on smartphones, tablets, and TV sets. The service will use DVB-T2 dongles and TV sets shall need to have a built-in DVB-T2 tuner. While such TVs are manufactured by Sony, LG, Panasonic, Samsung etc, the dongles are also available on online shopping sites such Flipkart, Ebay and Snapdeal.
The sixteen cities are Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Guwahati, Patna, Ranchi, Cuttack, Lucknow, Jalandhar, Raipur, Indore, Aurangabad, Bhopal, Bangalore and Ahmedabad. There will be no charges for watching the DD channels. Also, no internet access is required after installation of the software. The only one-time cost will be the purchase of the dongles.
“When the world was moving from terrestrial to satellite,Doordarshan was only moving backward. Now the only way to leapfrog is to use the existing infrastructure along with new technologies” said Jawahar Sircar, CEO at Prasar Bharati.