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Udupi : Cable TV Operators’ Association, Udupi district held a protest against the new systems of TRAI rules from the Union Government on Tuesday, December 18.

Addressing to the protesters at DC office premises, Manipal,  Kiran Kumar leader of the Cable TV Operators Association said that the new system which comes into effect from January will effect to Cable Operators and also to the public at large, he said.

During the agreement between Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) and DTH operators, the Union government not consulted the Cable Operators who will give service to large number of people. The most important of the new rules is the imposition of a price cap of Rs. 19 on all channels, HD or otherwise. The only way for any broadcaster to price its channel above Rs 19 will be take it out of all packages and sell it only as an individual channel, something that is practically not impossible given the market situation. As a result, the maximum price that any cable or DTH operator can charge for a single channel has, in effect been capped at Rs 19 per month, he said.

He said right now, the price of pack of 40-50 channels ranges between Rs. 225-300 per month or about Rs 6 per channel. As of now, Multiple System Operators or MSOs offer consumer a bundled package of channels. But December 29^th, the consumers will have to choose individual channels, which they want to see, which means that bundled packages will no longer work, and the consumer will need to pay individually for each channel. Once TRAI’s new directives come into force effective December 29^th, the consumer need to pay for the accessing the same number of channels in the packages, that basic package Rs 400 increase of 60%, medium package Rs 500 an increase of 54% and premium package Rs 600 an increase of 50%.

Kiran Kumar said that Prime Minister need to intervene and sort out the issue at the earliest. Both the cable operators and consumers will affect the new rules. District Cable Operators Association officials and others were present during the protest meet at DC office premises.