First of all, you don't have a choice to select a cable company. Regions are divided for different cable companies (e.g. Comcast, Cablevision, Time Warner etc.)
e.g. if you are in Stamford, CT (I moved six months back, thanks to offshoring), Cablevision provides the cable service and there is no other choice.
Cable company can also provide you DVR (Digital Video Recorder)/PVR, which is same as Tivo.
Some of the cable companies in some region have one or two Indian channels.


Dish Netwok - South Asian Cannels

Dish Network provides free receiver/DVR if you subscribe at least American Top 60 channnels with one/two (not sure) year/s commitment. You have to pay $5.00 per month for DVR service. I would prefer DVR from Dish Network over Tivo.
If you don't want DVR from Dish Network, just subscribe to South Asian channels and get a DVR from ebay. Then, activate the DVR.
By the way, I have a DVR from dish network having 100 hours recoding capacity and I love it. I just record all the programs, which I watch, in place of watching them live. On Indian channels, I can complete 30 minute program in 20-22 minutes skipping the advertisement.

Some of these are avaliable as bundle packages:
1. Dish Network Service + DSL internet service (from local phone company)
2. Cable TV + Cable internet + Cable Phone
BTY, I found Cable internet is faster than DSL.

Most of the Cable companies and Dish network provide HD receivers with DVR.

About Connecticut: one of the costliest state, worst traffic (even though there is no Metro city), Cold & snowy winter, easy commute to Manhattan by train.

thanks for the info. why didn't they release Star first? in US? early bird gets the worm.

north easters guess they are compensating you for all the other shortcomings of the region....which is not a valuable compensation at all. it could be that you have more time to educate yourselves since you are stuck indoors most of the time or not..

Cable internet costs at the least twice as much as DSL, but I've had cable internet in my present location for 5 years now. It's worth every penny that it costs over DSL. Apparently they are going to increase the speeds to 10mbit down/1mbit up in the coming year. and supposedly you can get these speeds now if you subscribe to one of their other packages.

Vijay, Dish DVR - do you have to subscribe even if you get a DVR from eBay? This might be the best way to go even with the extra service charge, cause the HTPC dish schedule listings for Intl Channels suck.

By activating, you pay $5 extra every month for DVR service.

I read somewhere that New Jersey took over the first spot for highest per capita income this year, but I may be wrong.

That was last year. However in the recently published data (Sep 2005) Connecticut is back at #1

http://www.bea.doc.gov/bea/newsrel/spi_highlights.pdf

He bought into Direct TV only this year, though the negotiations wer on and off for some time

Why can't you get all these channels in the UK?!?!?!?!?!??!?!?!

because you get all the Zee serials a month in advance. we get the left overs Except for Aaj Tak/Headlines Today - they are LIVE from India.