Marked in advance

  mobile services.

A prepaid card to renew your mobile connection is an idea many Indians have come to accept unthinkingly. But a prepaid card to recharge your DTH television subscription?

Both DishTV and TataSky have come up with prepaid vouchers, both for new subscribers to activate their connections and existing subscribers to make their monthly payments. Interestingly, nowhere in the world do consumers pay for DTH with such pre-paid vouchers.

In the Indian context, a prepaid card has many logistical advantages. Most important, it enables subscribers in remote areas "" where cable TV is yet to reach and where people may not be too easy with credit-cards, standing instructions to banks, cheques, drafts and so on "" to pay their monthly DTH bill. "In the cities," says Vikram Mehtam, head, consumer marketing, Tata Sky, "the pre-paid card could be used by people to pay for value-added services like movie-on-demand."

The concept is not entirely new. For the past two years, DishTV, the first to launch DTH services in India in October 2003, has offered subscribers the option of using plastic: the ITZ Cash Card, a product of group company, Intrex India.

But for Tata Sky, the pre-paid billing system developed using Comverse's Kenan FX billing software, is integral to its business model. The company has already started making them available through kirana stores, telecom outlets and even paan shops, reports Mehta.

This is over and above the massive distribution network of 14,310 dealers and 3,500 cities which Tata Sky has built up in the past two months for its set-top-boxes.

Besides, it has offers "" Rs 50 bonus on a Rs 1,000-card "" on the card that sound FMCG-ish. Not to be left behind, DishTV too launched an ITZ-DishTV cobranded card three months ago.

It has slso tied up with post offices in Chandigarh and other places for subscribers to pay through money orders, according to Anjali Malhotra, general manager, marketing.

Ease of availability and use are, of course, two attributes that may aid the acceptance of a new product. But will a readily available card usher in a DTH revolution in India?