The DTH saga

An opportunity we are intent on losing

Pakistan has always been in news, be it politics, terrorism or religious extremism. This time however, technology is the latest entrant in the long queue of national issues that have a horrendous impact on our economy and integrity. I’m talking about DTH which has been in the news since 2003. For those of you, who are not accustomed to this technology, let me state it in simple words: DTH stands for Direct-To-Home and provides digital television services directly to the end users (subscribers) eliminating the existence and need of cable TV infrastructure.

DTH offers many advanced features such as parental controls, booking facilities, recording of your shows, electronic programme guide (EPG) and many other characteristics that have revolutionised the digital broadcast industry. If we compare it with its local competitors, DTH is way ahead of cable TV industry in terms of voice and picture quality as there is no intermediary in between and the channels are transmitted directly and imperatively.

But even after 12 years of constant efforts by independent companies, this new technology remains exactly where it was 12 years back. These countless companies have faced various obstacles from 2003. Sometimes, the Cable Operators Association of Pakistan, which has a very strong lobby, made sure that DTH technology did not penetrate in Pakistan due to monetary reasons. While on other instances, this cutting edge technology was neglected per se by the state authorities due to reasons best known to them.

It is a bitter truth that most of your neighbouring developing countries, where resources are as unused to their full socio-economic potential as they are in our country, such as in India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka either have a fully functional DTH distribution service or they are on course to set up the same in near future.

The companies who are eager to take part in establishing and operating have recently finally gotten a green signal in the shape of expression of interest issued by the government. This time, however, it seemed that the government was interested in allowing DTH keeping their vested interests aside. The EOI gave a timeline of each step in a very detailed manner. The process was going completely smooth till the short listing of applicants. The bidding was supposed to take place on 7^th December but as fate would have it, the PEMRA chairman was changed just three days before the bidding. With the new chairman, who might have different ideology and dogma altogether, the whole process could face delay or even worse a stasis. One could ask the question as to why the government changed the chairman at the eleventh hour. Why has the government once again put the entire procedure on halt? Was this whole idea of restarting the bidding process a hoax? While one cannot be sure of the reasons but one thing is sure: this delay will have repercussions on different levels.

For starters, the foreign investors involved with various companies to get the DTH license will lose trust in investing in our country, as this is not the first time their efforts have been overlooked and disregarded. And by investment I mean around 40-50 million dollars approximately per investor. Secondly, the numerous job opportunities linked with initialisation of DTH which would have increased the rate of employment will no more have any scope, like distributors, installation teams, technical staff, support staff, sales teams and many others. The advent of DTH will come with a magnanimous scope of job opportunities on every level.

Thirdly, Dish TV (Indian DTH) set top boxes are already getting imported through China and Dubai and are sold throughout Pakistan. Each illegal distributor is earning millions of dollars out of which 98 percent go to India. Consequently, a total of 150 million US dollars are sent across border without tax deduction. Pakistan is also losing a source of tax generation by not allowing DTH services in the country. And lastly, our people would continue watching Indian content and hence India will continue defeating us in the culture war. Television is undoubtedly the most effective and fastest medium. Even if half of our population watches Indian TV, our future generations will have no idea of Pakistan ideology and our very own values and traditions.

To encapsulate the entire discussion, I would say it is high time the government took a serious and final step to establish DTH. We still have time to involve investors but once they lose trust in us, Pakistan will face a huge loss in terms of economic growth, development and fiscal stability. And keeping in mind our current socio-economic situation, we are not in a position to afford any further losses.