Joining Dish TV and Tata Sky, DTH services provider Airtel Digital TV has launched its television streaming app Pocket TV for Android. Now available for free in Google Play for Airtel Digital TV users, this app requires a monthly subscription worth INR 60, which will be deducted from Airtel Digital TV balance of the consumers.

“The app is a convergence of the TV & mobile phone and its launch follows the success of Airtel Digital TV’s innovative offering of Twitter on TV which was the first ever global convergence of Twitter and TV,” Airtel Digital TV noted in a press release.

The app offers over 150 live television channels, which can be streamed on your Android smartphone or tablet. You will also have access to old programming on over 13 channels, so you will able to stream your favourite programs (some of them given the limited number of channels) even after the telecast date.

Why not offer single subscription plans?

It is surprising how the DTH service providers are not offering single subscription plans, which integrate DTH access, streaming access on mobile devices and more. No consumer wants to pay several different subscription fees each month, this is simply bad user experience. We hope the other DTH service providers planning to launch similar apps will come up with such plans.

Update: As Sulabh Tandon of Airtel Digital TV points out in the comments, the subscription fee for the Pocket TV is deducted from the Airtel Digital TV account of the consumers, so the users won’t have to pay two different subscription plans and can just recharge their Airtel Digital TV account with monthly DTH charges + INR 60 for the Pocket TV.

I don’t understand the business model here. Pretty much everyone using this will watch it at home where there is wifi connectivity. If you have Airtel connection already then there is no point in paying 60 rupees more.

Also one more thing I observed is this app has 4.5 rating and every 5 star rating seems to be fishy reading the comments.

Dear Ravi,
So for example you have one TV in home on which your Dad is watching news… and you want to watch MTV roadies in the other room… what do you do?… well you could buy a new TV and a multl-connection… or simply use pocket TV to watch it on your mobile… 🙂

What about data charges during streaming channels. …is it free or it also consume data…..pls tell

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Sulabh TandonMarch 29, 2014

Dear Gaurav,
It is only a top-up you need to add once to your Airtel Digital TV account, thereafter you will just need to recharge with your base pack price + Rs. 60 for Pocket TV… so if your base pack price is say Rs. 300 p.m. and you want to subscribe to Pcoket TV… then please start recharging with Rs. 360 that’s it… pretty simple isn’t it…

Query 1 – Is it necessary to “Step 2: SMS ADD TV to 54325 from your registered mobile number” only…? If I want to download and see it on another phone, is it possible…? Can I give that Mobile No., which is not my Register Mb No…?