Aksh Optifibre has signed an agreement with BSNL to provide IPTV services to its subscribers in 20 cities in Northern India covering the states of Jammu and Kashmir, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Haryana, Rajasthan and UP (West) on the broadband network of BSNL.

As per the agreement, the company needs to have 10,000 IPTV subscribers within a span of nine months across 20 cities. However, the company is confident of increasing the number multifold. BSNL has a total landline network of 40 million across India and 6 million in north India itself, which means that there is immense potential in the market for IPTV services. The tie-up will also create thousands of job opportunities for individuals in various fields like marketing, sales, content development, support and product enhancement.

Commenting on the agreement, Dr Kailash Choudhari, MD, Aksh Optifibre, said, "It is our endeavour to provide cost-effective services to the masses and also to enter into tier II and III cities along with rural areas, giving them full rights to interactive entertainment in the true sense, thus, establishing IPTV as the most competitive platform".

The incremental cost for acquiring, creating content and subscribers is expected to be Rs 5 billion. Aksh has planned funding of this project through the international market. The company concluded a GDR/ FCCB issue of $40 million in January 2008 to part finance the IPTV and VOIP services in Delhi and Mumbai.

Aksh-Tel, Aksh Optifibre's Interactive Personalised Television (IPTV) delivers television programming, which comes with a high quality reception and several unique add-on features like time-shift television and video-on-demand. It also offers over 150 channels and plans to continue increasing the channel range for consumers.