Gujarat Telelinks Private Ltd. (GTPL), one of India's fastest-growing multi-service providers in India, has selected Cisco to usher in cable digitization across the key states of Gujarat, West Bengal, Maharashtra and Jharkhand.

The digitization program, under which GTPL will deploy more than 300,000 next-generation digital set-top boxes from Cisco over the next 12 months, is expected to help GTPL transform into a lifestyle-experience provider and help enable services like residential TV, HDTV, gaming, digital video recording, video on demand and future “connected home” services to retail consumers.

"Digitization will help us address several issues that have been dogging the industry and strengthen our competitive edge in the market over direct-to-home players,” said Aniruddh Sinh Jadeja, managing director of GTPL, in a statement.

Jadeja said that combining GTPL's expertise as a cable and Internet solutions provider with Cisco's (News - Alert) leadership in Internet Protocol Next-Generation Network technology will enable the company to offer improved value-added services such as digital video recording, video on demand and a host of other experiences to our subscribers. "Our engagement with GTPL is a matter of great pride and excitement and has brought about several firsts in the industry, potentially changing how subscribers consume and experience television and other digital services across key markets that GTPL has a presence in. Changing consumer preferences in the home entertainment segment is leading to a rapid growth of cable digitization in India,” said Vish Iyer, vice president, service providers at Cisco India & SAARC (South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation).

Iyer said that the engagement with GTPL demonstrates Cisco's ability to help transform cable service providers into experience providers, offering superior content and enhanced interactive services to consumers. TMCnet in January reported that Cisco has announced that the company’s Data Center Business Advantage architecture has been selected for use by Moses Cone Health System, a nonprofit health system with five hospitals; and Virtua, a nonprofit healthcare provider with four hospitals and multiple outpatient facilities.

Cisco Data Center Business Advantage represents an architectural framework for connecting technology innovation to business innovation. It is the foundation of the Dynamic Networked Organization.