TRAI hopeful of full cable TV digitisation in Phase I & II

Recently, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) warned the multi-system operators (MSOs) and subscribers in the digital addressable system (DAS) Phase I and II towns that enough was enough and that they had better get going on finishing the task of submitting the Customer Application Forms (CAFs) with two deadlines - on 27 January for 23 cities and on 31 January for eight cities - once again proving elusive.

A TRAI official informs that the work in the Phase I and II of Digital Addressable System (DAS) is near completion. Cities with 27 January as the deadline - Rajkot, Surat, Vadodara, Faridabad, Mysore, Aurangabad, Nasik, Pimpri-Chinchwad, Pune, Sholapur, Amritsar, Ludhiana, Jaipur, Jodhpur, Agra, Allahabad, Ghaziabad, Kanpur, Lucknow, Meerut, Varanasi, Chandigarh and Howrah - have almost been  100 per cent  penetrated with active set top boxes (STBs). Almost 85 per cent work has been done (as of 29 January) in areas with 31 January as the deadline that includes cities such as Patna, Ahmedabad, Ranchi, Bengaluru, Kalyan-Dombivali, Nagpur, Navi Mumbai and Thane.

MSOs have been given two to three additional days post the deadline to submit their compliance reports to TRAI.

"We are in touch with the MSOs on a daily basis and nearly 99.7 per cent has been completed as per the deadlines. If subscribers have failed to fill the forms, MSOs have cut off connections, saving TRAI's time and also saving themselves from any action against them," informed a TRAI official.

In Maharashtra, Siti Cable COO Anil Malhotra said that almost 90 per cent work has been completed and the subscribers who fail to fill the forms will have to face a TV blackout from February 01. "Scrolls have already been running to make them aware about it and thus we are sure that we will reach 100 per cent compliance soon," he added.

Hathway Cable and Datacom CEO Jagdish Kumar claims that in these areas Hathway has reached near about 100 per cent. "By 27 December, almost 90 per cent work was done, while the rest had to face a disconnection. Few customers came back to fill the forms and others switched to DTH," he says. In the next eight cities, about 80 per cent of forms have been collected and fed into the system.

S N Sharma, CEO, Den Networks, said, "In these cities we have complied fully and sent the report to TRAI. We have data of all subscribers and for those who haven't sent them, their cable connections have been cut off."

 According to this report our government achieved its aim of digiting the Cable TV industry without spending a single penny in contrast with other developed countries where heavy subsidies were given to consumers. While few exceptions are always there, most of the stakeholders are taking it seriously. And if the MSOs continue at the same pace and work towards achieving the goal diligently, by February, the work for phase III and IV will kick off.

Source: http://cablequest.org/news/digitization-news/item/4202-trai-hopeful-of-full-cable-tv-digitisation-in-phase-i-ii.html