KOLKATA: Households across the city’s suburbs and districts have complained of pay channels being arbitrarily close down from nighttime regardless of an particular order by means of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) asking multi-service operators (MSOs) to ensure customers aren't inconvenienced by means of blackouts all over the switchover to the brand new cable tv tariff regime.
On Thursday afternoon, masses of local cable operators demonstrated ahead of the Trai administrative center in Kolkata, not easy motion in opposition to MSOs for switching off pay channels overdue on Wednesday night time. “Offices of LCOs in Rajabazar and Beltala in the city and elsewhere in the districts, including Bankura and Burdwan had been attacked by means of irate customers after MSOs switched off pay channels. We want Trai to intrude and ensure there's no arbitrary transfer by means of the MSOs that creates a legislation and order downside,” demanded Apurba Bhattacharyya of Cable Operators’ Sangram Committee, including Trai will have to have had a greater monitoring mechanism to ensure a clean transition.
Though Trai had in its communication on Tuesday explicitly mentioned pay channels to customers who're yet to make a transfer to the brand new regime will have to now not be deactivated. The pay channel blackout has took place in levels, with some customers receiving a impolite shock on February 3 and others in the wee hours of February 14.
The state of affairs is even more piquant for LCOs that have customers who had made the choice and paid for the brand new package deal. “Consumers be expecting the applications to be switched on within minutes of paying. That isn’t going down presently and that's what is causes unrest,” mentioned south Kolkata cable operator Tapash Das.
MSOs denied that they had pulled the plug on customers. Instead, they pointed to a technical glitch in migrating customers from the prevailing pack to a best-fit plan as per Trai recommendation. “We need to take customers off the prevailing packs and load the brand new packs in opposition to their account. Given the high intensity of site visitors at this juncture, the servers aren’t ready to perform as efficienctly as they most often do. Thus the migration time for a buyer that are meant to take a couple of seconds is taking considerably longer. During the intervening time length, the pay channels are going off the air,” an MSO reliable defined.
LCOs, then again, mentioned that whilst it was once taking 30-60 minutes to execute one command in the portals of a few nationwide MSOs, others weren’t functioning in any respect. “It is apparent that MSOs weren’t prepared for the migration however did not disclose so lest their license is cancelled by means of Trai. It is the LCOs that are on the receiving end of the shopper ire,” mentioned Pradipta Karmakar of Biswa Banga Cable Operators’ Association.
A section of MSOs and LCOs additionally blamed Trai for the confusion brought about by means of the consistent shift in closing date for switchover to the brand new cable tariff regime. “Consumers are misinterpreting Trai’s orders. It has requested us to offer a best-fit pack, which is a package deal of free-to-air and pay channels closest to the one who customers had in the case of price. COnsumers are mistaking this for contiuance of the previous package deal. That is not imaginable since the base FTA pack price has increased, leaving much less in the kitty for pay channels,” some other MSO reliable reasoned.
On Thursday afternoon, masses of local cable operators demonstrated ahead of the Trai administrative center in Kolkata, not easy motion in opposition to MSOs for switching off pay channels overdue on Wednesday night time. “Offices of LCOs in Rajabazar and Beltala in the city and elsewhere in the districts, including Bankura and Burdwan had been attacked by means of irate customers after MSOs switched off pay channels. We want Trai to intrude and ensure there's no arbitrary transfer by means of the MSOs that creates a legislation and order downside,” demanded Apurba Bhattacharyya of Cable Operators’ Sangram Committee, including Trai will have to have had a greater monitoring mechanism to ensure a clean transition.
Though Trai had in its communication on Tuesday explicitly mentioned pay channels to customers who're yet to make a transfer to the brand new regime will have to now not be deactivated. The pay channel blackout has took place in levels, with some customers receiving a impolite shock on February 3 and others in the wee hours of February 14.
The state of affairs is even more piquant for LCOs that have customers who had made the choice and paid for the brand new package deal. “Consumers be expecting the applications to be switched on within minutes of paying. That isn’t going down presently and that's what is causes unrest,” mentioned south Kolkata cable operator Tapash Das.
MSOs denied that they had pulled the plug on customers. Instead, they pointed to a technical glitch in migrating customers from the prevailing pack to a best-fit plan as per Trai recommendation. “We need to take customers off the prevailing packs and load the brand new packs in opposition to their account. Given the high intensity of site visitors at this juncture, the servers aren’t ready to perform as efficienctly as they most often do. Thus the migration time for a buyer that are meant to take a couple of seconds is taking considerably longer. During the intervening time length, the pay channels are going off the air,” an MSO reliable defined.
LCOs, then again, mentioned that whilst it was once taking 30-60 minutes to execute one command in the portals of a few nationwide MSOs, others weren’t functioning in any respect. “It is apparent that MSOs weren’t prepared for the migration however did not disclose so lest their license is cancelled by means of Trai. It is the LCOs that are on the receiving end of the shopper ire,” mentioned Pradipta Karmakar of Biswa Banga Cable Operators’ Association.
A section of MSOs and LCOs additionally blamed Trai for the confusion brought about by means of the consistent shift in closing date for switchover to the brand new cable tariff regime. “Consumers are misinterpreting Trai’s orders. It has requested us to offer a best-fit pack, which is a package deal of free-to-air and pay channels closest to the one who customers had in the case of price. COnsumers are mistaking this for contiuance of the previous package deal. That is not imaginable since the base FTA pack price has increased, leaving much less in the kitty for pay channels,” some other MSO reliable reasoned.
Users cry foul over blackout, cable operators face heat
![Users cry foul over blackout, cable operators face heat]()
Reviewed by Kailash
on
February 15, 2019
Rating:
