TV screens to blackout in 3 metros starting today

Subscribers in Delhi, Mumbai and Kolkata might experience Television blackout starting on 11 July if they had not submitted their Consumer Application Forms (CAF) mentioning choice of channels.

Local cable operators (LCO’s) are requesting for the deadline to be extended, but their pleas might go unheard as there was enough time given to submit the forms. 

TRAI rule states the connection to be activated post submission of the forms. Government had given extra grace time during the role of DAS which required all the television sets to be seeded with Set top boxes in order to receive digital transmission of channels. DAS was implemented in these three cities nearly nine months ago, on October 31, 2012.

The Telecom Regulation Authority of India (Trai) had on June 25 said it was giving a 15-day final extension to Multi-System Operators (MSOs) for collecting and filing the CAF, failing which signals to the homes of customers who hadn't given these would be cut.

G S Kesarwani, deputy advisor, broadcasting & cable services division at Trai, says, "Our focus for this drive was Delhi and we have received 76 per cent of the KYC forms. The MSOs have been mandated by Trai to stop the signals to subscribers whose forms are not with us. Once we get the forms from these subscribers, signals to their homes will be started."

MSO’s and certain broadcasting companies feel the LCO’s arecausing unwanted delays in collecting the forms as they do not want to disclose the actual number of subscribers.

On the other hand, LCO’s are crying foul as they feel the exercise has not been implemented properly. Of the many reasons cited as impediments to the form collection process, the main one is unavailability in regional languages.

Roop Sharma, president, Cable Operators Federation of India, says: "The government is trying to be a 'hunterwala' and is pressurising the local cable operators to submit the forms. For an exercise so massive and with so many loopholes in the process, we need at least another six months."

Source: http://cablequest.org/news/digitization-news/item/2774-tv-screens-to-blackout-in-3-metros-starting-today.htmlSource: http://cablequest.org/news/digitization-news/item/2774-tv-screens-to-blackout-in-3-metros-starting-today.html