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TRAI lays down final deadlines for entry of subscriber details in subscriber management systems

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Harmeet
New Update

NEW DELHI, INDIA: Following the successful roll-out of the Digital Addressable Cable TV System (DAS) in the Metros, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has been rigorously monitoring the implementation of DAS in the 38 cities notified under Phase-II of its implementation. The cut off date for implementation of DAS in the Phase -II cities was 31st March 2013.

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TRAI has held a series of meetings with the Multi System Operators (MSOs) from August/ September 2013 onwards to monitor the progress in digitisation of the cable networks, which includes seeding of set-top boxes; collection of consumer application forms (CAFs) complete in all respects including choice of channels/services and entry of these details in the Subscriber Management Systems (SMS).

Keeping in view the enormity and complexity of the task involved, TRAI has exercised regulatory forbearance in the interest of consumers and initially extended the time for collection of the CAFs and entry of these details in the SMS up-to November 2013. Thereafter, on the explicit request of the MSOs, further extensions of time up to December 2013 were given.

The MSOs have been submitting periodic reports on actual numbers of subscribers entered into the SMS. As per the latest reports, in 23 cities (Rajkot, Surat, Vadodara, Faridabad, Mysore, Aurangabad, Nasik, Pimpri-Chinchwad, Pune, Sholapur, Amritsar, Ludhiana, Jaipur, Jodhpur, Agra, Allahabad, Ghaziabad, Kanpur, Luknow, Meerut, Varanasi, Chandigarh and Howrah), around 90 percent of the task pertaining to collection of CAFs and the entry of complete consumer details into the SMS has been completed.

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The MSOs operating in these cities have been asked to ensure that after 27th January 2014, TV signals (digital encrypted) are transmitted to only those subscribers whose CAFs have been collected and complete details are available in the SMS viz the MSO will have to switch off TV signals of the subscribers whose details are not available in SMS.

In Madhya Pradesh, compliance levels are comparatively low. However it is to be noted that elections to the legislative assembly were recently concluded in the state. Therefore, in the cities of Bhopal, Indore and Jabalpur, TRAI has prescribed a deadline 7th February 2014.

Taking into consideration the local ground conditions and other legal issues, in the cities of Visakhapatnam and Srinagar, TRAI has extended the deadline up to 28th February, 2014. For the state of Tamil Nadu and Hyderabad city, TRAI has not fixed any deadlines at this stage, given the pending legal cases regarding implementation of DAS.

In the remaining eight cities (Patna, Ahmedabad, Ranchi, Bengaluru, Kalyan-Dumbivli, Nagpur, Navi-Mumbai, and Thane) around 80 percent of the task has been completed till date. However, there is no valid reason for the delay. For these cities TRAI has decided that the deadline of 31st January 2014 shall apply.

TRAI has requested the subscribers availing cable TV services in the Phase-II cities to co-operate and ensure that they avail of the services only from cable operators who are providing digital encrypted signals. The billing in these cities will now take place in a transparent and uniform manner, with the subscriber paying only for the channels/ services for which they have opted.

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