Tuesday 29 July 2014

Consumer Organisation seek Interoperable STBs

An MSO from Kerala, M/s Kollam Cable, already registered for DAS services for the last one year, along with one TN Bhaskaran Nair, a Cable TV subscriber and Chairman of ‘ Consumer Vigilance Cell’, a Kollam based consumer organisation have filed a writ petition in the Kerala High Court bearing No 18759/2014 on 22 July seeking relief to pause the digitalisation process till interoperable STBs are made available to the subscribers that use a government approved common CAS. 
The parties have demanded in their joint petition that every Cable TV headend in the country should have a common CAS as the second option so that subscribers can purchase interoperable STBs of their choice and use them in a network of choice.  Mr Bhaskaran Nair before approaching the court has been filing number of RTI applications to I&B Ministry, TRAI, BECIL and BIS to find information  on why Interoperable STBs are not being made available by the MSOs to subscribers when the same has been provisioned in DAS regulations and the Amended Cable TV Act. 

Although Ministry has declared its success in implementing Phase-I and II of Digitalisation but the fact on ground is that no addressability has been achieved and no consumer has been given his or her choice as assured by the Government before the implementing the law more than two years ago. 
LCOs are already up in arms against the system as their livelihood is in danger because of the faulty law and have taken the government and regulator to the courts. Now as the regulator forces MSOs to implement the regulations and tariff orders, it is a turn of the consumer to fight back the system. 
Source: http://cablequest.org/news/digitization-news/item/5597-consumer-organisation-seek-interoperable-stbs.html
Source: http://cablequest.org/news/digitization-news/item/5597-consumer-organisation-seek-interoperable-stbs.html

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