iControl by MTNL & Aksh Optifibre - TV is servant...hogwash !

Here I was all excited about the new IPTV service iControl from MTNL & Aksh Optifibre ...it was offering something that neither CAS Cable nor DTH was offering as yet - Time Shift TV i.e. the ability to pause, rewind or forward live TV and also to watch again, any show from within the past week.

I read through their website and the requirements to get a connection - whether one still needed to be an MTNL Broadband user to get this service because it used to be mandatory in the past. The FAQs stated that you need not be an MTNL broadband subscriber as long as one had an MTNL telephone connection and a television set - fair enough I said...I have both as do a lot of people in Delhi.

They had a fairly good set of channels in their package, about 120, and the package was priced economically at Rs. 199. It seemed too good to to be true so I promptly placed an order after completing all the formalities.
But alas it WAS indeed to good to be true :-(

What the Bright people at iControl / Aksh Optifibre have failed to mention in their Bus Shelter Hoardings, Newspaper Advertisments & website etc. is that you can only avail of the iControl service IF and only IF your premises happens to be within a 3 KM radius of one of MTNL's telephone exchanges. Apparently my place falls just outside this radius - an unfortunately for Aksh and others - so does more than two thirds of the Janta of Dilli. I would estimate that no more than a 3rd of Delhi's population stays within a 3 Km radius of their telephone exchange.
How much sense does it therefore make to come up with a service that excludes more that 2/3 of the population ?

Is there business plan targetted at less than 1/3 of the population keeping in mind that not all the eligible MTNL subscribers will subscribe for the service if they are "Santusht with cable" or have already gone for "Dish karo" !?

So folks...you have been warned...don't waste your time on "iControl - TV is Servant" - this servant is just as elusive and hard to get as a good home servant these days !!!
Stick to Cable or Dish and if you are waiting for IPTV then let's both wait for Airtel to come up with a decent, well planned service that doesn't need you to be "within 3 Km radius of the exchange" - just hearing it in this hi-tech age makes one want to cringe !