ECIL to foray into set-top box manufacturing biz

To start rolling production by Nov 2005

Electronics Corporation of India Limited (ECIL), Hyderabad, is now betting big on the business of manufacturing set-top boxes.

The government enterprise has already been approached by three companies for this purpose and it will be shortlisting one out of the three in the coming months. A set-top box refers to a device that enables a user to select and display individual channels on television.

It is inserted between a television set and a cable or satellite feed and is, therefore, responsible for receiving, converting and sending the picture and sound to the television.

Speaking to the media on the sidelines of a press conference organised on the occasion of design review meeting for the 32-metre Deep Space Network (DSN) antenna system, G P Srivastava, chairman and managing director of ECIL, said that the company would like to enter the business of manufacturing set-top boxes.

"We have already built some set-top boxes and three companies have already approached us for this purpose. We will be shortlisting one and will start rolling the production by November 2005," he added. Srivastava also said that the enterprise needs a marketing outlet for this purpose.

ECIL has also been awarded the contract for establishing the 32-metre diameter DSN antenna system which will be used for Chandrayaan-1, India's first mission to moon.

The Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) Telemetry Tracking and Command Network (ISTRAC) is the lead agency responsible for establishing the ground station antenna at Byalalu on the outskirts of Bangalore.

ECIL will be responsible for the design, fabrication, installation and commissioning of the antenna system that will enable communication link-ups for the mission. It is collaborating with Isro Satellite Centre for radio frequency subsystem design and Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) for servo system design.

An amount of Rs 100 crore has been allocated for this purpose and it is targeted to be executed by March 2007. Through this mission, the collaboration aims at mapping the moon terrain, analysing the chemical composition of the soil on the moon besides checking the availability of Helium-3 on its surface.

According to S K Shivkumar, director of ISTRAC, "The DSN will have great commercial potential for other deep station missions."