TRAI issues regulations for DTH service

New Delhi, Aug 31: Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) today issued the Direct to Home Broadcasting Services (Standards of Quality of Service and Redressal of Grievances) Regulation, 2007, which covers regulatory provisions relating to protection of the interests of DTH subscribers.

The telecom regulator had brought out consultation paper on the quality of service (QoS) and interconnection issues for DTH service on March 2, 2007 to protect the interests of the subscribers.

After receiving comments from the stakeholders, an open house discussion was held at Bhubaneshwar on May 18.

Under the Regulations, the DTH operator will formulate schemes to offer customer premises equipments (including the set top box) (STB) to its subscribers on outright purchase basis, hire-purchase basis and rental basis. Authority may also prescribe suitable schemes in this regard in future if necessary.

The operator, while formulating its scheme for hire-purchase, will make provision for refund to be given to subscribers if they choose to return the customer premises equipment.

This facility, together with rental scheme, is expected to provide commercial interoperability to DTH subscribers in addition to technical interoperability which is already there in DTH licensing conditions. The operator will devise the format for application form and will assign a customer identification number to each such application received.

A time limit of five working days has been prescribed for complying with requests relating to shifting, disconnection and reconnection. DTH operator will give notice for discontinuing a channel or for disconnecting a subscriber.

The operator will not disable the if the subscriber has opted out of his service.

The subscription package offered to a subscriber will not be changed for six months. However, the subscriber can opt out of a particular package for any other package at any time.

Post paid subscribers, if any, will be issued bills containing details such as charges for subscription package, value added services, customer premises equipments, taxes etc.

These regulations will effectively protect the interests of the DTH subscribers without hampering the growth of DTH operations in the country, TRAI added.

UNI