We’ve heard that the I&B Ministry and the TRAI can’t quite see eye-to-eye over IPTV regulations – the regulations were released by the I&B Ministry, but also covered telecom operators. Soma Das writes in The Financial Express that the the I&B Ministry is planning to recommend that Cable Operators also be granted Right of Way for laying down and owning fibre optic infrastructure and setting up transmission towers. At present, only Telecom operators and ISPs are allowed the Right of Way, which gives them a competitive advantage over Cable Operators in case of IPTV services.
I wonder how things will play out when Cable Operators offer IPTV or digital cable over fibre – if it’s over Internet Protocol, then they can also provide value added services, over Internet Protocol. In that case, shouldn’t it also be governed by the Telecom Ministry? This is an era of a convergence of Telecom and Broadcast, and we need a convergence of regulation…perhaps even a convergence of Ministries (I&B and Telecom).
However, the ideal solution would be to separate content from carriage – in which all content transmitted would be governed by the Ministry of I&B, and the distribution business – of DTH, Cable TV, IPTV, Mobile TV, Broadband and Mobile will come under the Telecom Ministry. I made a few notes from the TRAI Open House Discussion over Cross Media Ownership, and will put those up soon.
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2 Comments until now.
Cable Operators in India, as usual remain the most neglected lot.In the absence of right of way, the cables are spread all over, an undesirable situation to say the least.
With the I&B ministry mulling over a lot of recommendations, including those on Cable TV and MSOs, CAS, HITS, Terrrestrial Broadcasting the situation to close to anarchy as all these fields are interdependent.
The Cable operators are now facing the full brunt of the growth of DTH which added 1 million customers in Oct 2008.
In the absence of suitable operating framework, adhoc cap on tarriffs, indecision on CAS and keeping in abeyance important decisions such as HITS, the industry presents a gory picture of neglect and indecision.
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