The Hindu Business Line : TRAI promises action on overcharging by Mumbai cable operators

DESPITE the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) order to freeze cable rates at December 26, 2003 level irrespective of the implementation of conditional access system (CAS), consumer organisations on Saturday appealed for the need to check the prevalence of overcharging and blackouts by cable operators in Mumbai.

Many consumer organisations including the Bombay Telephone Users' Association, the Mumbai Grahak Panchayat and the Consumer Guidance Society of India brought to light instances overcharging and blackouts by cable operators.

The TRAI Chairman, Mr Pradip Baijal, heard an assembly of cable operators, multi-system operators (MSOs), broadcasters and consumer organisations in toto and assured that any such incident of overpricing if supported by receipts from cable operators will be prosecuted.

Mr Achintya Mukerjee, Chairperson, Bombay Telephone Users' Association, said, "Rates have soared in many areas since January. We have sent across evident cases of overcharging by cable operators to TRAI with supporting proof of receipts, and we hope TRAI will take necessary action to address this."

The meeting discussed issues varying from set-top boxes to quality of service, and under-reporting of subscribers by cable operators. A section of cable households expressed the need for transparency in pricing.

Representing the MSOs, Mr Ashok Mansukhani, Executive Vice-President, Hinduja TMT, claimed that implementation of CAS will set in place an efficient subscriber management system, which will provide proper billing of those channels customers individually pick and choose.

The other issue in discussion was the rationale behind the pricing a la carte. The total cost is a cumulative of cost of carriage, which includes the cost of connectivity through hardware and cost of content, which has no definite scale of measure.

"How does one calculate the cost of content? Why should the cost of something as variable as content be borne by the customer?" asked Mr Mukerjee.

Mr E. Chandran from Consumer Guidance Society of India quoted an instance when the three-hour movie, Baghban, shown recently on television ran for full seven hours thanks to long ad breaks. He questioned the logic of having to pay for watching ads in a pay channel regime.

TRAI will table its recommendations on conditional access system by next month.