Despite some teething troubles and reports of shortage of digital boxes across some states, the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (MIB) has termed the third phase rollout of Digital Addressable System (DAS) as "positive" with over 75 per cent seeding of digital set-top-boxes (STBs).
Under DAS, all homes currently connected to the analogue cable network (cable delivered via copper-wire cable network) have to mandatorily use a digital STB. The deadline for Phase-III was over at the midnight of December 31, 2015.
On January 1, 2016, the task force of MIB constituted to monitor the DAS rollout assessed the progress of digitisation and termed it as being very positive. It noted that most of the notified urban areas had been seeded with STBs except only around 400 areas (out of 6000-plus areas) which were below 1,000 population.
The rest, the task force noted, were above population of 5,000. However, the broadcasters said they were facing piracy problems in Phase III areas. The government has told the broadcasters that they will have to cancel the agreements entered by them for analogue signals in Phase III areas.
The cable operators in Maharashtra said they were facing challenges in seeding around 2 million STBs in 60 per cent of the areas earmarked under Phase III as the national-level Multi System Operators (MSOs) were absent in these areas. Similar issues have been raised by the leading MSOs of Odisha where the delivery of STBs has affected the roll out.
However, the direct to home (DTH) operators have informed the government that there were 16 million active DTH boxes in the Phase III areas and they expected another 2 million boxes getting activated shortly. Additionally, there were 4 million STBs of DD Free Dish and 8 million digital cable boxes that have been seeded.
But the state governments of Uttarakhand, Andhra Pradesh, Telengana, Maharashtra, Sikkim and several MSOs have written to MIB for extending the cut-off date. MSOs and LCOs have said that there has been an acute shortage of STBs across Maharashtra, West Bengal, Madhya Pradesh among others.
The Task Force has underlined their concern that out of 510 MSOs registered for Phase III areas, only 190 MSOs have been entering seeding date in the MIS system while 185 MSOs that have logged in but were not reporting any seeding data. Government said 135 MSOs had still not logged into the MIS system.
Joint Secretary (Broadcasting) R Jaya said the number of urban areas to be digitised in Phase lll are 6016 spread across 27 States/UTs. About 400 officers from AIR and Doordarshan have been nominated to inspect the headends of MSOs and in this regard inspection reports have already been received from 50 officers.
Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has made it clear that analogue signals cannot be transmitted in Phase lll areas after 31 December, 2015.
Meanwhile, the High Court of Sikkim has granted a 12-week stay on the implementation of DAS Phase III in Sikkim and ordered the MIB to maintain status quo as on date (December 31, 2015). The matter has been listed for hearing on 28 March 2016. The stay order was granted taking into consideration that the subscribers would be impacted for no fault of theirs and the MIB is yet to respond to the petitioner All Sikkim Cable Operators Association's letter seeking extension of the Phase III deadline. Earlier, the High Court of Judicature at Hyderabad had granted a two-month stay on DAS implementation in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. The Madras High Court had also ordered status quo until 6 January.
BW Reporters
Ashish Sinha is an experienced business journalist who has covered FMCG, auto, infrastructure, tourism, telecom among several other beats. Ashish has keen interest in the regulatory scenario impacting different sectors. He writes on aviation, railways, post and telegraph, infrastructure, defence, media & entertainment, among a wide variety of other subjects.
