TRAI amends Quality of Service Regulations for DTH Services

New Delhi: 12th March, 2009 - TRAI today issued a Regulation to amend the Quality of Service and Redressal of Grievances regulations for Direct to Home (DTH) Services. The Direct to Home Broadcasting Services (Standards of Quality of Service and Redressal of Grievances) Regulations, 2007 were issued to lay down the standards of quality of direct to home services and to protect the interests of subscribers. At the time of issue of these regulations, only two DTH operators apart from Doordarshan were providing DTH services in the country. Since then, three new DTH operators have started commercial operations and the number of DTH subscribers has also risen to about 11 million. With increasing competition in the DTH segment and the increase in the number of DTH subscribers, new issues relating to quality of DTH service have arisen. In order to address these issues the Authority has amended the Direct to Home Broadcasting Services (Standards of Quality of Service and Redressal of Grievances) Regulations, 2007.

The Authority followed its consultative approach for amendment of the Direct to Home Broadcasting Services (Standards of Quality of Service and Redressal of Grievances) Regulations, 2007 by issuing a Consultation Paper on December 1, 2008 and holding Open House Discussion in Kolkata on February 6, 2009. After taking into consideration the comments received on the consultation paper as well as the comments made during the course of the Open House Discussions, the Regulation has been amended by the TRAI.

The main amendments made in the Quality of Service and Redressal of Grievances regulations for DTH Services are:

- The DTH operators have been prohibited from charging any fee towards visiting charges or repair and maintenance charges of DTH Consumer Premises Equipment during the period of warranty for such DTH Consumer Premises Equipment acquired on outright purchase basis.

- The DTH operators have been prohibited from changing the composition of their subscription packages during first six months of enrolment to the subscription package or during the period of validity of a prepaid subscription package, whichever is longer.

- The DTH operators have been mandated to proportionately reduce the subscription charges for a package from which any channel is removed for first six months of enrolment or during the period of validity of a prepaid subscription package, whichever is longer or to replace the channel with a channel of same genre and language.

- Option to select the channel of the same genre and language in a subscription package to replace a channel which has become unavailable on the DTH platform, has been given to the DTH operator.

- The option of choosing the package with reduced charges or the package with replaced channel has been given to the subscriber.

- Prior notice of fifteen days to be given by the DTH operator before changing the composition of any subscription package.

- DTH operators have been mandated to entertain requests of DTH subscribers for suspension of services if requested period of suspension does not exceed three calendar months and does not comprise part of a calendar month.

The amendment regulation is available on TRAI's website www.trai.gov.in. It is expected that these amendments will further empower the DTH subscribers and will improve the competitiveness of DTH platform, thus promoting subscriber growth.

Source : Equity Bulls

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