Tata Sky, the joint venture of Tata Sons Ltd and Rupert Murdoch-controlled STAR group will launch its direct-to-home (DTH) broadcast service between April and June this year, a top company official said here Wednesday.

"The DTH broadcast will become operational between April and June. We will initially operate in urban areas with a pilot project in Mumbai and roll out the digital service to other areas subsequently," Tata Sons director J.J. Irani told reporters.

As an 80:20 joint venture, Tata Sky will be investing several hundreds of billions in the DTH service, using the 12 transponders of INSAT-4A, launched Dec 22 on board Ariane-5 of Arianespace from Kourou in French Guyana.

The official, however, declined to confirm whether the upfront investment would be in the order of $500 million, as reported in a section of the media recently.

"Our roll-out plan across the country depends on the experience we gain first in the metros. The main content will be from STAR channels," Irani said.

Antrix Corporation, the commercial arm of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has leased all the 12 Ku band transponders of INSAT-4A to Tata Sky for launching its DTH service.

According to ISRO officials, the three-tonne satellite, which is being positioned in the geo-synchronous orbit at 36,000 km, will become operational from this month-end.

It is India's most powerful and heaviest communication satellites till date.

Tata Sky plans to offer about 150 digital channels on the DTH platform that is expected to revolutionise television broadcasting in the sub-continent.

Currently, the state-owned Doordarshan (DD) and Zee group use NSS satellite transponders of the Netherlands for their DTH services.

The Chennai-based Sun group plans to use the DTH platform to offer its bouquet of channels digitally in the near future.