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TRAI seeks views on various facets of CAS

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI, APRIL 20. The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India today came out with yet another consultation paper on broadcasting, covering various issues, including making the Conditional Access System voluntary, subjecting pay channels and advertisements on them to price regulation and a host of quality-related matters.

Pointing out that this was a sequel to the consultation paper released on January 15 and that the stakeholders have till May 7 for giving their comments, it said in a statement that open house consultations will be held on May 7 in Chennai, May 11 in Delhi and May 15 in Mumbai.

The TRAI wants to know if CAS should at all be introduced for viewing pay channels and should it be made voluntary for service providers. Also being questioned is the practice by service operators of offering set-top boxes, their subsidisation and the issue of interoperatability of these boxes for cable TV systems.

Views have also been sought on whether pay channels should be subject to price regulations at all, and by what methodology should price be determined; should bundling of pay channels into bouquets be allowed and should there be a uniform rate of service for cable. The consultation paper also seeks views on whether the Rs. 72 price for basic tier service of cable operations needs to be reviewed.

TRAI has also sought views of stakeholders on whether ads on pay and free-to-air channels be regulated and should ads be at all allowed on pay channels.

It also focusses on the issue of denial of signal of TV channels to cable or direct-to-home operators and denial of carriage of channels by MSOs, seeking opinions on whether this would be deemed anti-competitive.

"Should TRAI make it mandatory for the broadcaster to have an open access to their contents on non-discriminatory basis to all platforms including cable TV and DTH," the paper asks.

TRAI is also eliciting views on whether `must carry' of a channel should be made mandatory for all cable and DTH service providers and whether TRAI should set quality standards for cable TV services.

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