The company has supplied 400 cable modems so far and is charging its subscribers a flat amount of Rs 1,000 per month. For a cable modem, customers will have to cough up Rs 16,000. "Through one cable modem, eight subscribers can get access. We are having corporates, cyber cafes and individuals as our clients," said 7 Star promoter and director Atul Saraf.

The company uses Crayon modems. "Within two months, we have supplied 2,500 computers connected to the Internet," said Mr Saraf. 7 Star has increased its bandwidth from 5 mb to 8 mb as the number of subscribers have increased.

The MSO has its network in the western suburbs of Mumbai, spreading from Bandra to Jogeshwari. 7 Star plans to offer video-on-demand and teleshopping within the next two months. The company also aims to introduce pay-per-view, e-commerce, and other value-added services. The price for the movie-on-demand services has not been fixed. The company has 12 channels under the addressable system and charges Rs 1,500 per subscriber per year.

The channels include Paramount Movies, Fox News, Sky News, American Plus, Channel V International, Nickelodeon, Super Movies, Hollywood channel, The Movie Channel, Max Movies, UK Granadia, American Plus and Star Movies International. While Star Movies is an Asian feed, Star Movies International is a separate beam. "The channel shows better movies. We have 5,000 subscribers under the addressable system," said Mr Saraf. Other cable networks have also started offering cable on the Internet in a minor way in selected pockets of Mumbai. But a big hurdle is the price of the cable modems, which operators say is expected to fall across the globe.