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Confusion worse confounded. That was the situation on Monday, a day after the deadline set by the Centre for the Cable TV viewers to shift to Digital Addressable System (DAS) expired. While many enjoyed uninterrupted transmission in Hyderabad and Visakhapatnam, an equal number, particularly in the State capital, were horrified to find their telly go blank.
With apparently no response from the Centre to a request by the State government to extend the deadline, there were different claims from different quarters. Hyderabad Joint Collector E Sridhar told Express that they had asked the Centre to clarify if they should disconnect connections. “The connections have been blocked at some places. Some multi-system operators (MSOs) have told us the signals have been blocked directly by broadcasters themselves,” he said.
As per the Centre’s guidelines, the cable television digitisation should have been completed by March 31. But due to shortage of set-top boxes and delay in laying optic fibre cables, cable operators sought extension of deadline by at least another month.
A petition filed by the Cable Operators’ Welfare Association seeking extension of the deadline is set to be heard by the High Court on Tuesday.
Harish Goud, president of the Cable Operators’ Welfare Association, wondered: “The digitisation of TV connections will take longer as many households are yet to acquire the set-up box.
If we sever connections now, we will get into a lot of trouble with customers and who will protect us then?” Giving the operators a shot in the arm, rights activist and journalist Chalasani Narendra filed a PIL in the High Court on Monday challenging the action of the Centre in fixing a deadline without taking steps for supply of set-top boxes at affordable rates.
In Visakhapatnam, the MSOs claimed they were given another 10 days to complete installation of set-top boxes! District Collector V Sheshadri, however, made it clear that they did not receive any such directive from the Central government. About 5.5 lakh set-top boxes are required to complete digitisation of cable television services in Visakhapatnam while the figure is said to be over 20 lakh in Hyderabad.
“Visakhapatnam was added to the list of 38 cities in the last minute as part of the second phase of digitisation. We were not informed earlier due to which we were unable to place the orders in time. Further, they should be imported from China and other countries which would take at least 25 days for shipment and transportation,” said I Ramakrishna Raju, managing director of Sridevi Digial Vision.
The MSOs claim they would be able to complete digitisation in Vizag only by June. Agreements on revenue sharing between paid television channels and MSOs have not yet been finalised and some cable operators are yet to get licences to operate in the DAS regime. They feel that it could take three months to stabilise and offer packages to consumers’ satisfaction.
In addition, the MSOs claim that they would require more than Rs 60 crore to purchase the required boxes. In all, less than two lakh set top boxes have reached Visakhapatnam as against an order for about six lakh boxes.
Customers as victims:
Customers are caught between the devil and the deep sea in this digitisation process.
Cable operators are allegedly demanding a hefty amount for providing set-top boxes in the absence of supervision from the line departments.
“We were told that the set-top box would cost us about Rs 1,200 but our local operator installed it at our house only after payment of an additional Rs 500,” complained M Kanthi Kiran, a government employee.
Many are doubtful over their quality and performance as a majority of the instruments lack ISI standards. It is even being alleged that local cable operators are tampering with the set-top boxes to block signals sent from the box to the satellites to evade payment to the government.
Recently, Visakhapatnam joint collector Pravin Kumar had directed MSOs to announce the exact prices of the set-top boxes but very few complied.
In Hyderabad, a set top box with CTV costs about Rs 1,500, Digicable about Rs 1,300 whereas Hathway and Sitivision charge about Rs 1,200 and Rs 1,000 respectively.
All hell breaks loose in Hyderabad, Vizag as cable digitisation deadline ends -The New Indian Express
With apparently no response from the Centre to a request by the State government to extend the deadline, there were different claims from different quarters. Hyderabad Joint Collector E Sridhar told Express that they had asked the Centre to clarify if they should disconnect connections. “The connections have been blocked at some places. Some multi-system operators (MSOs) have told us the signals have been blocked directly by broadcasters themselves,” he said.
As per the Centre’s guidelines, the cable television digitisation should have been completed by March 31. But due to shortage of set-top boxes and delay in laying optic fibre cables, cable operators sought extension of deadline by at least another month.
A petition filed by the Cable Operators’ Welfare Association seeking extension of the deadline is set to be heard by the High Court on Tuesday.
Harish Goud, president of the Cable Operators’ Welfare Association, wondered: “The digitisation of TV connections will take longer as many households are yet to acquire the set-up box.
If we sever connections now, we will get into a lot of trouble with customers and who will protect us then?” Giving the operators a shot in the arm, rights activist and journalist Chalasani Narendra filed a PIL in the High Court on Monday challenging the action of the Centre in fixing a deadline without taking steps for supply of set-top boxes at affordable rates.
In Visakhapatnam, the MSOs claimed they were given another 10 days to complete installation of set-top boxes! District Collector V Sheshadri, however, made it clear that they did not receive any such directive from the Central government. About 5.5 lakh set-top boxes are required to complete digitisation of cable television services in Visakhapatnam while the figure is said to be over 20 lakh in Hyderabad.
“Visakhapatnam was added to the list of 38 cities in the last minute as part of the second phase of digitisation. We were not informed earlier due to which we were unable to place the orders in time. Further, they should be imported from China and other countries which would take at least 25 days for shipment and transportation,” said I Ramakrishna Raju, managing director of Sridevi Digial Vision.
The MSOs claim they would be able to complete digitisation in Vizag only by June. Agreements on revenue sharing between paid television channels and MSOs have not yet been finalised and some cable operators are yet to get licences to operate in the DAS regime. They feel that it could take three months to stabilise and offer packages to consumers’ satisfaction.
In addition, the MSOs claim that they would require more than Rs 60 crore to purchase the required boxes. In all, less than two lakh set top boxes have reached Visakhapatnam as against an order for about six lakh boxes.
Customers as victims:
Customers are caught between the devil and the deep sea in this digitisation process.
Cable operators are allegedly demanding a hefty amount for providing set-top boxes in the absence of supervision from the line departments.
“We were told that the set-top box would cost us about Rs 1,200 but our local operator installed it at our house only after payment of an additional Rs 500,” complained M Kanthi Kiran, a government employee.
Many are doubtful over their quality and performance as a majority of the instruments lack ISI standards. It is even being alleged that local cable operators are tampering with the set-top boxes to block signals sent from the box to the satellites to evade payment to the government.
Recently, Visakhapatnam joint collector Pravin Kumar had directed MSOs to announce the exact prices of the set-top boxes but very few complied.
In Hyderabad, a set top box with CTV costs about Rs 1,500, Digicable about Rs 1,300 whereas Hathway and Sitivision charge about Rs 1,200 and Rs 1,000 respectively.
All hell breaks loose in Hyderabad, Vizag as cable digitisation deadline ends -The New Indian Express
