The last time you visited a shopping mall abroad, you could not have missed the large display screens beaming content — latest music videos, news and mall-related updates such as discounts. If you thought it was merely a fancy application to entertain bored or tired shoppers, Tata Indicom VSAT Services (TIVS) may have you thinking again.

This wholly-owned subsidiary of Tata enterprise Nelco recently tied up with Digifour Technologies to offer a dynamic digital signage (DDS) solution mainly targeting retailers, banking and financial services institutions. "Digital signage is a high-impact medium. It can be used for delivering product information, training, promotion, advertising and other critical information. By 2009, the global DDS market is estimated to reach $2.9 billion," Mihir Singh, assistant manager, marketing, TIVS, told eWorld. According to him, no research papers are available to estimate India's market potential.

Static versus dynamic display

Though the medium of content today is digital, the nature of the content is largely static. For instance, though some malls and large stores may have LCD screens in-store, the content run on these screens is often a particular video or advertisement about the company that is repeated for days. This content is often run on a CD / DVD player in the store. However, CDs cannot be delivered instantly across geographies. The same applies to power point presentations and e-mail attachments exceeding a certain file size. This results in companies being forced to run campaigns and communicate to employees and clients in stages, before covering all branches across the globe.

TIVS' solution overcomes these challenges by using very small aperture terminals (VSATs) to beam content from a central server to multiple locations across geographies. Changes made at the central server are reflected instantly across destinations. Besides, VSAT has an inherent multicasting property, which means content is streamed only once before before being transmitted to multiple locations, says Singh.

In comparison, other communication systems stream content every time it is to be transmitted - hence using up more bandwidth, time and subsequently costing more, he says. For example, if a retailer decides to offer a discount on one of its not-so-hot-selling products, it can send this information in the form of posters or flash news across all its locations instantly using TIVS' solution. Shoppers seeing this information may choose to avail of this spot discount, thus increasing sales of the product. Such examples are common abroad where hourly discounts on products are beamed throughout the store and in malls housing them. Additionally, the retailer can use the display screens to simultaneously train its staff across locations before the stores open, says Singh. In India, a well-known example of dynamic digital display is the giant screen installed on the Bombay Stock Exchange building that beams the business news channel NDTV Profit and another display updating stock tickers. But more companies seem to be coming forward to explore the DDS option for their branches.

Keen interest

"We have received about 10 enquiries on the DDS solution and are in discussions with companies to implement it in stages," Singh says, without sharing any names. Companies that do not use VSATs would need to invest a few lakhs or crores depending on the number of locations they want covered. This includes the price of the network hardware, the display screen (LCD or Plasma TV), the computer systems, VSATs (bought by TIVS from original equipment manufacturers), connectivity and network management services (on Tata Indicom's network). Those already having a VSAT (such as banks for their ATM services) can add the DDS solution to their existing platform.