Even though the satellite TV service has yet to be officially launched to the public, it seems like Smart Digital International already working on future plans for Sirius. Among them are new versions of set-top box (STB) for the service, as revealed by the company’s Group CEO, Khairuddin Abdul Rahman in an interview with Digital News Asia (DNA) for the publication’s Digerati50 2020/2021 honours list.
One of the future Sirius STB that he envisioned will include support for SIM cards. In addition to that, Khairuddin is also looking to provide STB that also functions as a Wi-Fi router and the company is now actively looking for partners to make this happen.
The interview also mentioned that Sirius has learned through a market survey last year that less than 25% of the respondents were happy with the current contents on their existing satellite TV service. Additionally, almost 40% of them would change to alternative satellite TV provider and around 80% only willing to pay monthly fees of less than RM 50 for their satellite TV subscription.
With Measat as its partner, Smart Digital International is utilizing SES-12 satellite and MX1 content platform to deliver Sirius services to consumers. However, the satellite TV service still has no firm launch date at the moment but based on recent updates, it seems quite likely that Sirius will finally be available to the public in coming months.
(Source: DNA Digerati50 2020/2021 – pdf page 47. Requires registration to download.)
