Reliance Info Extends Deng To 86 Cities

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http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/871947.cms

MUMBAI: Telecom and broadband major Reliance Infocomm has extended its Digital Electronic News Gathering operations, which helps television channels to send video and news content to their studios on a real-time basis, to 86 cities and towns in India.

"DENG was launched on a test basis in 12 cities during the last election time to help TV channels provide news coverage on a real time basis from even the remotest locations, over our 60,000 km-long Optical Fibre Cable (OFC) network," Reliance Web World chief executive officer Sarup Chowdhary told here on Sunday.

This facility, apart from saving time, also helps the channels "break news", apart from cutting costs, as they "save the trouble of moving their OB vans to the news site, he said.

To use the facility, a TV crew has to send their pictures from the nearest Web World, which can be easily downloaded at the channel's studio or head office, and later uplinked to the satellite.

"All this can be done in just a few minutes time and the channel will only have to send his camera crew and reporters, rather than moving an entire team with OB vans," he said.

DENG facility was first tried and tested by all TV channels when BJP firebrand leader travelled from Bhopal to Hubli which had issued a warrant against her and by Chennai-based Jaya TV during the Kumbakonam school fire mishap, Chodhary added.

Chowdhary said, as the content can be sent over Reliance's OFC, downloaded at channels' studio and uplinked within minutes of the occurrence of news, the TV stations would be able to provide a "near-live" telecast.

The facility was commercially launched recently, and has been extended to over 86 cities and towns from the present 12, and is used by over 25 TV stations and production units, including ANI, NDTV, Star TV, India TV, E-TV and Jaya TV among others.

Reliance Infocomm Business Manager for DENG, Joydeep Ghosh said certain channels have also laid last mile connectivity from their premises to Web Worlds and downloads on Ethernet cables.

Of the total 101 Web Worlds providing DENG service, 18 of them in metros are equipped with decoders and the transferring of data is managed by a central helpdesk, ensuring network availability, he said.

Reliance Infocomm is planning to extend the facility to all its 240 Web Worlds in the country, even though this might depend on demand from TV channels, Ghosh said.