While on a visit to Nashik in order to create awareness among the telecom consumers about their rights and privileges, officials from TRAI asked multi-system operators to let the customers choose their packages. The visit which was a part of its consumer outreach program also saw the regulatory body reiterating the issue of set-top box ownership.
The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India is of the opinion that multi-system operators must clearly mention to the customers what sort of an ownership of the set-top boxes is being provided to them. This will put to rest a number of issues regarding servicing and repairs, between local cable operators and consumers.
It has also been pointed out by the TRAI officials that there’s a need for local cable operators to clear their outstanding issues with the multi-system operators by signing internal agreements. This will result in much more efficient functioning of the administration, according to them.
There was a big disagreement between local cable operators and multi-system operators in Nashik regarding who will be responsible for paying entertainment duty to the state government. Moreover, the local cable operators had also demanded that the entertainment duty be reduced.
Also Read: Set-top box providers in India get new diktat from TRAI
As revealed by a Times of India report, TRAI officials have asked multi-system operators to provide packages to consumers so as to allow them to add or delete channels from their viewing lists. They said that this process should be carried out at the earliest, and that the customers must be issued regular bills for the amounts they pay to the cable operators.
It’s pretty clear that TRAI is taking a number of steps right now to solve the issues with local cable operators and multi-service operators. Let’s see whether it succeeds in doing that or not.