South Indian MSOs to form Federation

According to a report by Indian Television, MSOs in Southern India are planning to form a South Indian Federation. The federation will launch officially in December in Kerala.

The group is looking at developing common platforms using a single middleware in order to reduce the cost of providing value added services. “A technical team has already been formed for this and they are working on getting the service in place,” Sudhish Kumar, executive director of Sagar E Technologies, told Indian Television. The MSOs see offering broadband as the most promising way to generate additional revenue.

The MSOs together provide services in Bengaluru, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Kerala via 20 headends to around 3 million subscribers.

Top MSOs launch new public campaign

An MSO alliance comprising of top MSOs in India that includes giants like DEN Networks, Hathway Cable & Datacom, Siti Digital Cable Television and InCableNet, have now launched a new public awareness campaign to educate the public about billing. They have taken the initiative to let subscribers know that they will have to be billed according to their chosen TV packages from December 2013 onward.

MSO Alliance secretary and DEN Networks CEO S.N Sharma said, “This move is important as it will ensure that there are no additional or random charges levied on the subscribers. Our viewers will thus pay only for what they watch and they must insist on a bill from their local cable operator or MSO at the time of monthly payment.” The campaign was run in top papers in the country.

The broadcasting regulator, Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has told MSOs to complete their customer application form (CAF) collection and start billing from December. It has also noted that subscribers will get 15 days from the time of having gotten their bills to make the payment. This only effects MSOs functioning in regions coming under Phase I and Phase II of digitisation.

MSOs ordered to deliver tariff packages

118 MSOs in India have been given clear instructions by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) to deliver their tariff packages. The MSOs have been given less than a week to submit the details.

The authority has also given MSOs only 10 days to submit their interconnection agreements that was entered with the broadcasters for re-transmission of channels. Especially the ones entered with cable networks in DAS areas. The statement read, “Every MSO, according to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India Act, 1997 (24 of 1997) and regulation 5, 8 & 9 of the Telecommunication (Broadcasting and Cable Services) Interconnection (Digital Addressable Cable Television Systems) Regulation, 2012 (No. 9 of 2012), is required to have such interconnection agreement in DAS areas.”

TRAI has been cracking down on both MSOs and LCOs lately. Most recently TRAI officials met up with Chennai based MSOs and warned action against them if they didn’t stop the transmission of analogue signals. There is also a problem with CAF forms as many MSOs in DAS regions are unable to complete them within the deadline stipulated by TRAI.