Airtel Broadcaster Packs

[armaan_99]

DTH is dying, with so much content available on various OTT platforms this was expected.
I went with DTH almost after a gap of 5-6 years if I remember clearly.

I opted for Airtel Black as only for additional ₹99 per month(instead of 999 it’s 1098) I was getting DTH with ₹350 worth channels.(it’s not 350 channels), I had the option to choose these channels earlier from all available bouquet now it’s restricted to only Airtel bouquet. This actually spoiled everything now for me as Airtel bouquet are bundled with some nonsense channels which I do not watch and still need to opt for that package.

If the channels I opt are under ₹350 my bill will be ₹1098 only.

 

[armaan_99]

All good things come to an end, now in Airtel black only select plans customers can choose which Airtel has designed and A La Carte channels, no additional addons/bouquet can be selected.

Airtel Black will soon be dying, looks like Airtel marketing team screwed it big time to promote.

May be Excitel to the rescue now.

Any one here using Jio AirFiber.

 

[armaan_99]

Update: No packs can be activated for any customers till 14th Oct due to Sun Outage. Does this makes sense? Earlier signal issue used to happen due to Sun Outage, I am seeing for the first time where no plans can be activated during Sun Outage.

 

[armaan_99]

Airtel Sun outage was a hoax created by one of the customer care team, for some reason my base pack was dropped hence the option to activate addons was disabled, no one could solve the problem, got to know when I was unbundling by DTH & BB while moving out of Airtel Black, currently on Airtel 499 plan and getting around 50 Mbps speed on a 40Mbps plan.

A big Adieu to DTH.

PS:- Already Airtel is in touch to collect the Xstream STB stating in service request as ‘Recovery of CPE’.

 

[iNokia]

They are still offering the 99 rupees additional pack to broadband connection. What all channels are included in it? Can I find a list online somewhere? And is the installation charged like 1500? Will it be xstream box (like fire stick/jio) or old school DTH with dish?

 

[MrGordon]

@iNokia Their marketing which says Rs 350 worth DTH is misleading. On Airtel Black, you can only choose specific bundled DTH plans which includes many channels that you don't want. The app doesn't let you remove the unwanted channels, and you can only add more which would increase your monthly bill.

It would be an Xstream box but would still need the dish, the box runs Android so apps like Netflix, Prime, Hotstar etc are available.

As part of the bundle, if you make an advance payment of Rs 3300, all installation charges are waived off, and Rs 3300 will be available as credit for your future bills.

 

[MrGordon]

So I was able to get the ala-carte plan activated ie without using their bundles. Its a bit back and forth in the app, and seem to work only on Android, but now I could choose only the channels that I want.

I am on the Rs 399 plan, so I get Rs 260 (before taxes) worth DTH free with it. One other challenge that I saw is that, there are no broadcaster bundles available so you have to pay for individual channels. I was thinking the broadcaster bundles are a bit cheaper.

 

[SVK]

Last few days scroll banner is coming on all Zee channels that this channel would be removed from your Pack and need to subscribe that channel separately. Any idea whats going on? Already I am paying 400+ for Airtel DTH, and don't want to subscribe any more channels from Zee which we watch at home.
Similar issue was there with Tata Play DTH and Sony, where Tata Play removed all Sony channels and asked to add the a-la-carte. But I read somewhere that Tata Play reduced Pack prices after Sony channels were removed.

 

[armaan_99]

DTH is dying, broadcasters are happy selling OTT subscription, local cablewallas at least in my area are giving good service. Running cost for these companies is increasing day by day, it just time to see all get disappeared. OTT has already killed multiplex and is already killing DTH. One of the reason why Aamir has decided not to release his next movie on OTT.

 

[DreamDTHer]

Welcome to the Airtel money making machine. You are probably on one of the useless highly priced Airtel Base language packs which cannot be removed by you through the app and even CS will sound helpless. The only channels you can add or remove are A-la Carte ones or the free channels. There is an alternate method to remove the base pack through the TRAI channel selector app (which I did) though I'm not sure if it will also work for Airtel black ( I am now a prepaid suscriber).

There are no broadcaster bouquets now, so you can only watch the packages that Airtel thinks you should.