MANDADAM: Sitting in his two-bedroom home in the heart of Capital Amaravati, Gadde Mallikarjuna Rao (57) is busy checking the messages on his laptop, while his wife watches her favourite movie on an LED Television.
Their modest home in the village, whose skyline has been changing ever since it has been included in core Capital Amaravati, is amid a row of homes being renovated for leasing to banks and commercial outlets.
Mr. Rao ran a primary school, had been a sales executive for phrama companies and is now practitioner of Homeo medicine for over two decades. What makes him excited is the launch of AP Fiber Grid digital cable services, providing him digital viewing experience on his flat TV, round-the-clock seamless Internet connectivity and a host of other features including video on demand, online bill payments and shopping and android applications etc.
Mandadam is the second village in Andhra Pradesh after Mori in East Godavari district to get access to fibre digital services by the AP State Fibernet Services providing voice, video and data all through the optic fibre services. Located at a distance of two km from the Secretariat, the village is on the cusp of change going digital. All he had to pay is ₹149 per month, the basic package for 250 channels, 15 mbps data connectivity and video calling facility. The installation charges for a GPon box, IPTV box come to about ₹4,000, but Mr. Rao is not complaining. The add on features include watching movies on demand, video conferencing and online trading etc. The LED TV can double up as a computer performing a host of functions.
“We have been enjoying digital TV experience and I am also able to connect with my patients through Skype. They send me images of their medical condition and I prescribe medicines to them. We are also able to chat with my sons and daughters through video calling. We faced problems earlier due to slower data speed with our broadband,’’ Mr. Rao told The Hindu on Friday.
Cable operators excited
The Local Cable Operators are excited as they see a windfall. “We have given optical fibre connections to 50 homes so far, while there are 1,100 households in the village. Customers are happy with the services,’’ said local operators T. Venkata Rao and Veeraiah.
