The District administration in Ranchi asked on 6 February the cable TV consumers to switch over to digital transmission (DAS) from Analog Cable TV Network by March 31.
Deputy Commissioner Vinay Kumar Chaubey, in a public notice, has said that the cable TV consumers have to get set top boxes in view of the Information and Broadcasting ministry’s directive.
Significantly, the DC’s fiat to get set top boxes has been received by the cable operators with scepticism.
They were also under the impression that the deadline is bound to be extended as there are several requirements to be fulfilled before jumping to the DAS from Analog. Besides, it has not yet been implemented completely in any of the metro cities despite given several deadlines.
“Let’s see what happens on March 31. For now, we are preparing ourselves for the deadline, if the set top boxes will be available then we will install it otherwise God knows what will happen,” said a cable operator at Kanke Road Bablu Bhagat.
“According to official data, Ranchi itself needs over 1.2 lakh of set top boxes against which merely 20 percent of them have been supplied. So, it is next to impossible that such a large number of set top boxes will be supplied in the given period of time,” said Bhagat. Moreover, the actual number of connections is more than the official data,” he added.
The government itself is not clear on the issue of supply of set top boxes as it is very difficult to produce them numbering in crores in such a short period of time neither they are clear on revue sharing among the broadcasters, distributors and local cable operators.
“We are also confused how it will be possible to install such a large number of set top boxes as they are still not available in the market. If the TV sets go blank from April 1, they will automatically switch over to the DTH, causing a loss to us,” said another cable TV operator from Bariatu Rajeev Bhatia.
“Given the fact that some of the cable operators in Ranchi have not gone digital till date hence, it will be difficult to implement this in the near future. Moreover, it is a time taking process as whole software has to be changed and configured accordingly for every operator if they want to shift from Analog to Digital,” pointed out another cable operator.
However, ‘Manthan broadband service,’ which has tied up with the Cable Operators Association to provide digital TV services, said that it will meet the deadline.
“We are fully prepared to meet the deadline as we have been working on the project for the last one and a half year,” said an official of Manthan. “We have already installed 1500-2000 set top boxes and are capable of installing the remaining one lakh boxes in the coming two months’ time as plan has already been chalked out for it,” pointed out a senior functionary of Manthan, requesting anonymity.
Source: http://cablequest.org/news/digitization-news/item/1007-dc-ranchi-to-survey-march-31-deadline-for-cable-tv-digital-switch.htmlSource: http://cablequest.org/news/digitization-news/item/1007-dc-ranchi-to-survey-march-31-deadline-for-cable-tv-digital-switch.html
Source: http://cablequest.org/news/digitization-news/item/1007-dc-ranchi-to-survey-march-31-deadline-for-cable-tv-digital-switch.htmlSource: http://cablequest.org/news/digitization-news/item/1007-dc-ranchi-to-survey-march-31-deadline-for-cable-tv-digital-switch.html
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