Set top box update (boy, that’s sure a lot of posts for something I won’t be watching most of the time): not yet activated. Apparently Hathway will process the OCR-friendly form I filled up and then activate my set-top box, this is expected to complete by Monday afternoon. Sucks — SCV, a competing operator, has apparently already activated its customers.

Notes on the technology used by Hathway — their set-top box is a Humax box running News Corp’s NDS (of chequered history) VideoGuard. Interactivity is possible, although the manual says “this feature is not currently available”. Pay-per-view is possible, again, not implemented. Overall, not quite up-to-the-minute, but very decent technology: it brings India’s cable tv business out of the technological dark ages and frees the viewer from the whims of the neighborhood cable op. Of course, the unfortunate bit is that most Indians would gladly pay a pittance (Rs 100) and watch the all (free+pay) channels on offer, a sleight of hand possible in connivance with their cable op, which under-reports viewer stats to upstream cable ops.

While writing this post, called up Hathway and cribbed about the activation lag, and a couple of other issues (Here’s one of them: the audio gain on NDTV 24×7 seems to be set too high, sibilants are cracking as a result. This isn’t a TV set problem — NDTV Hindi and other channels are fine). My impression: for a cable op that’s set to get into a direct billing relationship with households in some of the world’s biggest cities, they have a lot of work to do on customer support helplines. They do have a customer helpline (96220 01122 in Chennai) but the support folk seem confused and only too ready to pass on the buck to the local cable op, and only after much pushing on a string did they even listen to the issues I have. Unlike Airtel (which has a decent helpdesk) or HSBC (which in India has a kick-ass helpdesk in my experience), this one is new and raw, and its rawness is compounded by what I believe is a failure to make up its mind about whether it is a wholesaler or a retailer.

I believe I can help Hathway make up its mind: their logo is plastered all over the set-top box and the set-top box remote control. When things go wrong, who do you think customers will curse? Especially when things seem to work fine for their neighbors running SCV set-top boxes? If it’s your brand name and goodwill on the line, you better take ownership of customer complaints and solve them fast.