The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : When Chennaiites relied on TV, Internet

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Mar 14, 2006

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

When Chennaiites relied on TV, Internet

Karthik Subramanian

Thanks to CAS, residents missed out on the greatest match ever

CHENNAI: While the rest of the country's cricket-crazy fans woke up on Monday to discuss the greatest one-day cricket match ever, a large cross-section of their counterparts in Chennai could only grit their teeth. They simply felt like outcasts because of the conditional access system (CAS).

Several fans got wind of something special happening at the Wanderers in Johannesburg last evening through friends who lived outside the line of control of the CAS. M. Arun, a final year engineering student, got a call from a friend in Chengalpet not to miss the match. "The only option was to watch the score ticker on Headlines Today. Star News telecasting the final over was a consolation." The few who did have the set top box (STB) took on the task of continuously updating their friends over the phone on what was happening, and a preposterous conversation it was. "They are chasing 434 and are on target." You don't hear that kind of stuff everyday!

The score update by cricinfo.com website was a good source for many. The site works on an elaborate system wherein the visitor gets to know a ball-by-ball update on how the ball was bowled or played, besides giving the score.

R. Ramesh Kumar, Chief Operating Officer, Cricinfo India, said their score update registered 8,632 unique IP addresses on Sunday evening in Chennai and Coimbatore regions. "Considering that most persons came to hear of the exciting match only in the evening and considering the fact that it was a weekend, the number of unique page visits is unusually high," he said.

A vast majority of the less fortunate others in the city have, by now, grown tired of CAS, which makes set top boxes necessary for watching premium pay channels. The box itself costs around Rs.3,000, an investment not everyone is interested in making right now, especially with the direct-to-home service around the corner. Though the system is to be extended to all the metros in the country soon, they feel cut up by the fact that it is in force right now only in Chennai. And, it might be several more years before a match of such quality is played.

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