Tata Communications has, in a unique initiative, enabled the worship of various religious places on the web, christened as “Live Darshan”. It has won the silver award for “Best Progress in Emerging Markets — Live Video” at Visiongain’s Mobile Content Awards 2008.
The content service is a highly innovative offering that brings religious content delivery via live video feed to 1Bn video-enabled devices. Tata Communications installed live video setup at six of the most revered religious sites in India and integrated the live feed with all major mobile operators and premium content providers. The service provides subscribers — national and international — with access to major religious services through this highly popular, high-quality, and socially beneficial offering. “We would like to thank Tata Communications and its staff for the outstanding job and helping us to achieve our mission to reach out to as many people as possible using technology,” said the Siddhivinayak Temple Trust.
The Tata Communications team introduced a fully managed network, supportive of this religious content delivery and live video feed by establishing seven business ventures with India-based MNOs, generating additional revenue and new subscribers. Exceeding expectations, the team additionally expanded reach beyond India by contracting ROK TV, an international broadcaster.
Several of the sites featuring the Live Darshan services are featured below:
Internet (Tata Indicom broadband website and temple website) http://shrikashivishwanath.org/
http://www.siddhivinayak.org/livewebcasting.htm
http://www.shrisaibabasansthan.org/shirdilivedarshan1.htm
mms://59.165.131.6/iskconinternet
mms://59.165.131.6/hajialiinternet
DTH operator (Tata Sky)
http://www.tatasky.com/actve-darshan.html
The team worked to ensure that each phase of the project, from installation to deployment, was comprehensively planned and supported by trained staff members. To mange project security the team instituted a full staff on site in addition to a 24x7 NOC, dedicated to quality assurance.
Having managed the operations for internet (webcasting), DTH operators and mobile operators also wished to extend the same feed on their platforms. After taking the consent from temples, the feeds are now extended from ISKCON, Shirdi, Siddhivinayak and Kashi on DTH platform also. In addition to this, the company is extending these feeds to all mobile operators. The mobile medium operates on two platforms. One of them is ‘live streaming’ of video and the other one is ‘Video on Demand’ (VoD).
This journey however was fraught with many challenges such as geographical locations of many of the sites like Haji Ali and Vaishnodevi.
With more of service than business orientation to it, Live Darshan is going places with many future plans in its kitty. “Live Darshan”…is a powerful force…Using this service, devotees get a live darshan in just a few clicks. In that sense it is both convenient and is a service to society,” said the Iskon Television Trust.
Through this innovative service, Tata Communications has been able to reach around 1 billion subscribers in India and abroad, and considers it a part of corporate social responsibility.
