On 22 December, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) issues a consultation paper on ‘Empanelment of Auditors for Digital Addressable Systems’ seeking views of stakeholders on various audit-empanelment related issues such as scope of audit, eligibility criteria and experience, length of empanelment, audit fee and payment terms, time period for completion of audit work, de-empanelment, and reporting requirements of auditors.
Written Comments on the Consultation Paper have been invited from the stakeholders by 22 January and counter-comments by 7 February.
TRAI is planning to empanel independent auditors for the technical and subscription audit of the digital addressable system (DAS) of distribution platform operators (DPOs). TRAI said that the consultation process will enable it to prepare a comprehensive document to seek proposals from auditors in line with the industry requirement and formulate guidelines to auditors.
TRAI explained in its paper that the empanelment of the auditors and other related activities would be done only after the ongoing matter pending before Madras and Delhi High Courts are decided. It further added that the consultation paper is a preparatory work before calling proposals for empanelment of auditors, and has no bearing on the said regulations or ongoing litigations.
TRAI has asked stakeholders to provide their comments as what methodology to decide fee of the auditor would best suit the broadcasting sector and why? Also, how can the optimum performance of the auditors be ensured including maximum permissible time to complete audit and what can be the parameters to benchmark performance of the auditor?
As a matter of fact, the TRAI’s common regulatory framework for all addressable systems that was issued on 3 March is sub-judice in the High Court of Madras and High Court of Delhi. The interconnection regulations that form part of the regulatory framework for DAS have provisions relating to technical audit and subscription audit wherein it has been provided that the authority may empanel auditors for this purpose.
Distributor including multi system operator (MSO), direct to home (DTH) operator, headend in the sky (HITS) and IPTV operators are required to install digital headends including Subscriber Management System (SMS) and Conditional Access System (CAS) for distributing signals of TV channels through digital addressable systems.
TRAI has prescribed minimum technical specifications for addressable systems to maintain a level playing field amongst all the distributors.
TRAI is planning to empanel independent auditors for the technical and subscription audit of the digital addressable system (DAS) of distribution platform operators (DPOs). TRAI said that the consultation process will enable it to prepare a comprehensive document to seek proposals from auditors in line with the industry requirement and formulate guidelines to auditors.
TRAI explained in its paper that the empanelment of the auditors and other related activities would be done only after the ongoing matter pending before Madras and Delhi High Courts are decided. It further added that the consultation paper is a preparatory work before calling proposals for empanelment of auditors, and has no bearing on the said regulations or ongoing litigations.
TRAI has asked stakeholders to provide their comments as what methodology to decide fee of the auditor would best suit the broadcasting sector and why? Also, how can the optimum performance of the auditors be ensured including maximum permissible time to complete audit and what can be the parameters to benchmark performance of the auditor?
As a matter of fact, the TRAI’s common regulatory framework for all addressable systems that was issued on 3 March is sub-judice in the High Court of Madras and High Court of Delhi. The interconnection regulations that form part of the regulatory framework for DAS have provisions relating to technical audit and subscription audit wherein it has been provided that the authority may empanel auditors for this purpose.
Distributor including multi system operator (MSO), direct to home (DTH) operator, headend in the sky (HITS) and IPTV operators are required to install digital headends including Subscriber Management System (SMS) and Conditional Access System (CAS) for distributing signals of TV channels through digital addressable systems.
TRAI has prescribed minimum technical specifications for addressable systems to maintain a level playing field amongst all the distributors.
No comments:
Post a Comment