By Manoj Govindassamy - { 19/01/10 }
DTH Set Top Box portability – Tata Sky, Reliance BIG TV, Zee Dish TV under pressure
Direct To Home (DTH) might be the next telecom story in India. Similar to telecom industry, more competition in DTH space led to affordable DTH tariff structures and more and more people are migrating from the traditional cable based systems to DTH. Getting into a new DTH system might be a cake walk. But, DTH players aren’t ready to make the space so easy for the users jumping to competitors service.
Competition commission of India (CCI) has been receiving tons of complaints on these DTH players on how they put forth the conditions for using their hardwares. Set Top Boxes which receive the signal for any DTH player is technically same and a same box should be usable for all DTH services. But, DTH operators like Tata Sky, Reliance Big TV and ZEE’s Dish TV (their market share) have made their Set Top Boxes usable only with their services. So, users who are willing to move to another service are pulled back by the non-interpobaility of the hardwares and the huge initial cost of setting up.
In fact, this is violation of section 3 & 4 of CCI Act and the commission has all the power to penalize these DTH players for not adhering to the rules. CCI has sent notice to these DTH providers and replies are expected within 15 days. Seems, CCI is all set to clear a major pain point in the DTH and make it for user friendly.
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