TRAI announces a new regulation for DTH

NI Wire

New Delhi

Sat, 01 Sep 2007: 

Sep 01: The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, TRAI has announced to issue a new regulation for Direct to Home Broadcasting Services to prevent the intert of DTH subscribers and their welfare.

The DTH Operator now cannot disable the set-top boxes of the subscribers who want to discontinue the DTH service. This regulatory will be known as ‘Quality of Service and Redressal of Grievances Regulation, 2007’ that will be implemented from Dec 01, 2007.

TRAI announced on Friday to protect the DTH subscribers’ welfare against the cable operators that charges their clients on the behalf of several schemes and plans without giving them prior information. This new regulation will also prohibit changing the running scheme frequently. The operators will have to continue the scheme for at least six-month periods and also have to inform their customers well before making changes.

The DTH operator cannot force the customer to choose the package against their wish; Operators will have to provide the packages what customers want. TRAI has made clear that subscribers are free to discontinue the service and the operators will have to refunds money for DTH equipment that they ask at the timing of installation on security basis and the cost of equipment.

The operators will have to allow the users to choose the DTH equipments on the rent basis instead of only lump-sump charges as well as they can not force the new subscribers to repurchase the DTH equipment if the customers already have it no matters of which company. Usually the subscribers have to pay between Rs 3,000 and Rs 4,000 for the DTH hardware pack Besides this the customers will have full authority to move on to rival service providers if they provide better services at lower costs.

At present DD Direct+, Dish TV and Tata Sky are the DTH service providers currently operating their services across India while SUN TV, Reliance Blue Magic and Bharti Telemedia are expecting to launch their DTH operations in the coming months.

Despite of DTH subscribing the customers will have the option to use the device to access “Free to Air” channels. TRAI has also strictly instructed to the DTH operators establish toll free call centers with sufficient capacity to handle the load of the calls from their customers and to solve all the problems of the clients within five days of complaining and all billing complaints within seven days.

This new regulation will be quite beneficial for the customers but for the operators, it is not as pleasant as they cannot do willingly what they want. "This is a welcome move for the industry, and we have been following a number of these provisions. But we wanted TRAI to also look at incentivising us financially by advocating the removal of value added tax, which it has ignored”, said a senior Dish TV official on the condition of not to reveal the name.

Meanwhile, this new regulation will be very beneficial for the general customers and the numbers of DTH subscribers will be enhance due to this new regulation as they feel more freedom to opt for a particular service provider and have no limitation to lock longer to a company in the condition of not getting satisfaction.