The Hindu : National : TRAI opens discussion on CAS, FM radio

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, May 08, 2004

National

National

TRAI opens discussion on CAS, FM radio

By Our Special Correspondent

CHENNAI, MAY 7. The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) will come out with separate national-level policies — one to regulate broadcasting and distribution of TV channels and the other dealing with the FM radio in a month.

Addressing presspersons after the day-long open house discussion on "Cable and Broadcasting Services" and on "FM radio," the TRAI Chairman, Pradip Baijal, said since Chennai was the only metro where the Conditional Access System (CAS) was implemented, the TRAI would hold similar consultation in Mumbai (May 11) and New Delhi (May 15) on this "sensitive and complex CAS issue." The New Delhi and Mumbai open house sessions would also deliberate questions and accept suggestions on the "unified licensing system" for the telecom sector.

The TRAI was now engaged in this massive exercise of preparing suitable regulations which will both protect the consumer's interest and the business promoters' interest, Mr. Baijal explained. "At present, there is no regulation at all. It has emerged as a major industry unregulated for over 15 years," Mr. Baijal said adding that the recommendations would be a nationwide acceptable model.

Pointing out that there will be no "penal provisions" for those who violate the proposed regulations, the Chairman clarified that those violators would be prosecuted in the court of law. The TRAI would leave the penal provisions to the court of law.

Responding to a pointed question on the proposed national-level policy on "FM radio," Mr. Baijal said the regulator would attach great importance to the entry-level pricing of the FM radio business entrepreneur and at the same time protect their business interest.

The TRAI, its Chairman said, would study the global patterns in the broadcasting and distribution of TV channels and also the FM radio channels before incorporating the recommendations suiting to the Indian pattern.

Mr. Baijal said the TRAI would not go into the contentious issues relating to the programme contents of the various TV channels as a regulatory authority.

Today's TRAI consultation turned out be a "stormy session" in the morning with representatives of consumer organisations, Multi-System Operators (MSOs), the Cable TV operators and the TV channels voicing their unanimous consensus on the need for "continuing CAS" in Chennai and demanding its extension to other metropolitan cities. The consumer organisation groups also wanted universal Set Top Boxes (STB) so that they could be used in case of transfer to any other metro and issuance of receipt from the cable operators be made mandatory besides cancelling their licence if they failed to do so.

In the FM radio session, the deliberations turned out to be relatively calm with an appeal to the TRAI to make its licence "more freely tradable."

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