The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has issued a consultation paper in a bid to bring in greater quality in cable services in non – Conditional Access System (CAS) areas and in direct to home (DTH) services.

There are nearly 78 million consumers receiving cable TV services in non-CAS areas, being served by about 60,000 cable operators.

In 2004, the Authority had indicated the code and guidelines for quality of service for cable TV services. However, no formal regulations were issued in view of highly fragmented nature of cable TV sector, because of implementation difficulties at ground level.

Subsequently, TRAI has issued quality of service regulations for cable services for CAS notified areas in 2006. The DTH subscribers are also benefitted by the quality of service regulations for DTH services issued by TRAI in 2007.

The paper has asked for the stakeholder`s views on proper procedures and timelines for connections, disconnections and transfer of cable services. The stakeholders have also been asked about the procedure for informing the subscribers about change of channels along with their channel position.

The consultation paper also said that it was also desirable to have regulatory provisions relating to quality of service to be forward looking in sync with the existing CAS quality of services regulations. This will help the service providers in seamless migration on quality of service front whenever CAS is extended by the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting in their areas of operation in future, it said.

This will also help in achieving the objective of digitalization and addressability in cable services at a faster pace without compromising the quality of service.

In addition, the TRAI has simultaneously written to various state governments for effective monitoring and enforcement of quality of service parameters, once the regulations are issued for non-CAS areas.

The ministry of Information & Broadcasting has also been addressed for enlarging the scope of the existing district level monitoring committees in order to enable these committees to monitor the proposed quality of service regulations.