Cable operators protest against TRAI new tariff orders

Udupi: A protest was staged against the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India’s (TRAI) revised tariff order for TV channels by the Udupi District Cable Operators’ Association on December 18^th.

Addressing the members, the association’s secretary Kamalaksha Pai said that many dependent on the business will lose their source of livelihood due to the development. The tariff order is forcing cable operators to end their lives, he charged.

Many DTH and cable companies offer over 60 HD channels at a price around Rs 225 per month. Under the new tariff scheme, the average distributor price of an HD channel works out to around Rs 15. Thus, if the DTH and cable operators try to provide the same 60 HD channels under the new scheme, they will have to pay Rs 864 to the channel owners, explained Mr Pai.

 “In other words, we will get only Rs 225 from each subscriber. But we, in turn, will have to pay Rs 864 to the channel providers,” he said.

Just because TRAI has revised the rules, the consumers are also not going to pay extra for less number of channels. There are 366 cable operators in the district with 1.54 lakh connections. TRAI’s decision is set to create huge loss to the cable operators, he added.