ITV

Category: Regulators

  • TRAI issues new consultation paper on VNO

    NEW DELHI: The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, which had in May 2015 recommended that Virtual Network Operators (VNO) in the telecom sector should be permitted for all segments of voice, data and video as well as for all services notified in the unified license (UL) for a period of ten years, is now working on providing recommendations for Access Service authorization for category B license with districts of a State as a service area.

    The Department of Telecom had issued guidelines on 5 July 2016 for authorization for Access service in a Secondary Switching Areas (SSAs) as service area is in addition to the TRAI recommendations of May 2015. These guidelines are meant to introduce UL (VNO) Cat-B with Access Service authorization in a District of a State/UT. DoT further clarified vide their letter dated 12 September 2016 that there shall be no category of Direct Inward Dialing (DID) franchisee License in future.  At present, there are 259 franchisees operating in the country.

    TRAI says that it appears that the objective of the guidelines/licenses issued by DoT is to streamline DID franchisee regime and provide them a better and broader business umbrella through proper licensing. It is evident that the guidelines/license conditions were not a part of TRAI’s recommendations on the subject and DoT has first issued these guidelines/ licenses and then sent the reference for the recommendations of the Authority on the matter

    Resultantly, the regulator has issued a new consultation paper with ten questions for stakeholders. Stakeholders are to respond on 17 April with counter comments if any on 24 April 2017.

    The regulator had in its recommendations said VNO should be introduced through proper “licensing framework” in the Indian telecom sector. For introduction of VNO in the sector, there should be a separate category of license namely UL (VNO). Like UL authorization, only pan-India or service area-wise authorizations may be granted under a UL (VNO) license.

    TRAI said that VNOs are service delivery operators, who do not own the underlying core network but rely on the network and support of the infrastructure providers for providing telecom services to end users and customers.

    VNOs can provide any or all telecom services, which are being provided by the existing telecom service providers.

    VNO should be introduced in the network based on the basis of mutually accepted  terms and conditions between NSO and the VNO. The terms and conditions of sharing the infrastructure between the NSO and VNO are left to the market to determine.

    VNOs should be permitted to set up their own   network equipment where there is no requirement of interconnection with other NSO.  However, they should not be allowed to own/install equipment where interconnection is required with another NSO.

    Local Cable Operators (LCOs) and Multi Service Operators (MSOs) can become VNO and are permitted to share infrastructure with VNOs.

    TRAI had said that there should not be a restriction on the number of VNO licensees per service area and there should be no restriction on the number of VNOs parented by an NSO.

    The paper is available on

     

  • MIB favours switching to DTH if consumers have problems with MSOs or LCOs

    NEW DELHI: The ministry of information and broadcasting (MIB) has said that HITS (Head-end In The Sky), private DTH and DD FreeDish are the options in remote rural areas while discussing the issue of the concerns expressed by operators that over 20 per cent of rural and remote areas were not financially and technically viable.

    DTH operators were advised by MIB to pay special attention to such area enabling customers in these areas to readily adopt these services given by them and to explore the possibility of cost effective packages especially for these remote and inaccessible areas.

    About the issue of sharing infrastructure cost with MSOs & Local Cable Operators (LCOs) keeping in mind high cost of providing signals in remote areas, the Ministry said it felt consumers have the option to take services from DTH operators and/or DD Free Dish and it may not be administratively feasible by the Ministry to share cost for infrastructure as a large number of MSOs and LCOs are operating in these areas.

    MeITY to solve problems relating to STB manufacturers

    A Parliamentary Committee was told that the Electronics and IT (MeitY) Ministry was attempting to address the entire value-chain holistically and was in active consultation with the concerned Ministries in view of the demands by the Association of domestic STBs manufacturers of long term financing to the MSOs and 0% import duty with effect from 1 January 2016 under India-ASEAN FTA which has also adversely affected the production of domestic STBs.

    The Committee noted that though there was no stay now after all cases relating to Phase III were transferred to the Delhi High Court, the cut-off date was extended “due to poor seeding of STBs because of the uncertainty caused due to the court cases.”

    Under-utilisation of funds due to market uncertainty

    It was also noted that Rs 50 million was allocated at budget estimate stage 2016-17 which was reduced to Rs 30 million at Revised estimates 2016-17 due to the large number of court cases filed in various High Courts and “total uncertainty in the market” about the implementation of cut-off date of 31 December 2015 & 31 December 2016 for Phase III and Phase IV of digitisation respectively.

    As a result, workshops with the nodal officers could not be conducted, which resulted in the underutilisation of funds from the projections made at BE stage.

  • TRAI chief pushes for b’band over cable TV, BharatNet for upping penetration

    NEW DELHI: Pointing out that initiatives such as broadband over cable and government’s OFC project BharatNet are important to increase broadband penetration, TRAI chairman RS Sharma has called for aggressively boosting India’s data connectivity profile as the country lags way behind many Asian countries on this score.

    According to Sharma, India’s data connectivity ranking was below Sri Lanka, Vietnam and Singapore, and way below the 46 per cent of average data connectivity level worldwide.

    “Indian telcos have delivered ubiquitous voice connectivity at affordable rates, but data connectivity remains a pain-point with the country ranked at 138 among the 175-odd countries, which is even below many African countries and island nations,” the Economic Times quoted Sharma from his keynote address at the ET Telecom India Mobile Congress last Friday.

    Highlighting the proactive nature of the regulator in giving fillip to broadband penetration, Sharma said the sector regulator has already recommended deployment of cable TV infrastructure for beefing up broadband, especially since 100 million homes already have cable connections. More recently, it has advocated freeing up new spectrum bands to ring in affordable Wi-Fi services in public places, the ET report stated, adding the chief regulator revealed the Department of Electronics & IT (DeitY) and the telecom department (DoT) were jointly initiating “a pilot program to offer affordable Wi-Fi, affordable Wi-Fi connectivity with free localized content“.

    Asserting that the national broadband project BharatNet would see significant acceleration in the coming months, the ET report quoted Sharma as saying the project could play a key role in boosting India’s overall data connectivity profile if implemented through the public-private partnership model as suggested by TRAI.

    Responding to a query on high spectrum costs in India, Sharma said the regulator had advocated a “pay-as-you-go model” for spectrum payouts to ease fiscal pains for telcos.

    Going forward, the sector regulator, according to the report, may also suggest that mobile virtual network operators (MVNOs) be allowed to partner with multiple telcos, which would give consumers more choice for voice and data services and also allowing telcos more options to monetize unused airwaves.

  • Present mechanism to check TV content is adequate, says Rathore

    NEW DELHI: Noting that the present mechanism for checking content of private television channels is considered adequate, the minister of state for information & broadcasting Rajyavardhan Rathore has said “there is no need to clarify the restrictions on right to freedom of speech and expression guaranteed under the Constitution in so far as the issues of national security and interests are concerned.”

    In a reply in the Parliament, Rathore said the Programme and Advertising Codes and the Inter-Ministerial Committee (IMC) set up in the Ministry to look into specific complaints or suo-motu take cognizance against the violation of Programme and Advertising Codes are sufficient. The IMC functions in a recommendatory capacity. The final decision is taken by the competent authority based on the recommendations of IMC.

    He said that under the existing regulatory framework, all programmes and advertisements telecast on private satellite TV channels and transmitted/re-transmitted through the Cable TV network are required to adhere to the Programme Code and Advertising Code prescribed under the Cable Television Networks (Regulation) Act, 1995 and Cable Television Network Rules, 1994 framed thereunder.

    The Act does not provide for pre-censorship of any programme or advertisement telecast on such TV channels. These Codes contain a whole range of parameters to regulate content on such TV channels.

    Rule 6(1)(p) of the Programme Code provides that “No programme should be carried in the cable service which contains live coverage of any anti-terrorist operation by security forces, wherein media coverage shall be restricted to periodic briefing by an officer designated by the appropriate Government, till such operation concludes. It is clarified that “anti-terrorist operation” means such operation undertaken to bring terrorists to justice, which includes all engagements involving justifiable use of force between security forces and terrorists”.

    The Constitution allows State to impose reasonable restrictions on Freedom of Speech and Expression guaranteed under Article 19(1)(a) on grounds of sovereignty and integrity of India, security of the State, friendly relations with foreign States, public order, decency, morality, or in relation to contempt of Court, defamation or incitement to an offence, as laid down under Article 19(2) of the Constitution.

    Similarly reasonable restrictions can be imposed under certain situations on the freedom to practice any profession, business, etc. under Article 19(1)(g). This spirit of the Constitution is also reflected in the Cable Television Networks (Regulation) Act, 1995, which while upholding the freedom of Electronic Media imposes reasonable restrictions in public interest.

  • Star & Vijay TV amend plea, TRAI asked by Madras HC to file response

    NEW DELHI: The Madras High Court today decided to hear on 24 March the case by  Star India and Vijay TV alleging that the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India tariff and other orders allegedly were in conflict with Copyright Act 1957.

    This development came after the HC allowed an amended application from petitioners to be filed, which, according to industry sources, broadly states that TRAI regulations involving tariff, etc are bad in law.

    Following the Supreme Court directive of 16 February 2017 on an appeal permitting TRAI to issue its tariff and other orders even as the case would continue in the High Court, both the broadcasters had filed an amended petition. The court also directed TRAI to file its reply by Wednesday next.

    TRAI had issued three regulations, including one on tariff on 16 January 2017, the day the Supreme Court gave its clearance.

    The broadcasters had sought to argue that the TRAI orders are in conflict with the Copyright Act 1957. As a result of that court order and pending the full hearing of the case, TRAI would not be able to pass any guideline for issues such as broadcast tariff, broadcast interconnect, and quality of services. The temporary stay by Madras HC was over-ruled by SC later.

    It is also expected that a final judgment on the case could come about by 3 April 2017 in the Madras HC, if not before that date.

    Last year, TRAI had issued draft guidelines on tariff interconnect and quality of service, and TRAI chairman RS Sharma had then told indiantelevision.com that the regulator would come out with its final recommedation by the end of 2016.

    It may be recalled that the Indian Broadcasting Foundation (IBF) had also said in reaction to the TRAI drafts that the exercise was in direct conflict with the provisions of the Indian Copyright Act.

    The comments had been stated in a submission to the Telecommunication (Broadcasting and Cable Services) Interconnection (Addressable Systems) Regulations 2016; the Telecommunication (Broadcasting and Cable Services) (Eighth) (Addressable Systems) Tariff Order 2016; and the Standards of Quality of Service) and Consumer Protection (Digital Addressable Systems) Regulations 2016.

    The All India Digital Cable Federation (AIDCF), which had made itself party to the case after being allowed by the Madras High Court, till the time of writing this report had not yet made up its mind whether to further join issues with petitoners’ amended application in Madras High Court.

    Also read

    Maintain status quo on broadcast guidelines, Madras HC tells TRAI

  • Net neutrality: TRAI open to ideas till 12 April

    NEW DELHI: A second extension has been given to stakeholders to give their views on the crucial issue of net neutrality, on which a consultation paper had been issued by theTelecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) on 4 January, 2017,

    Those wanting to give their views on this subject may do so by 12 April with counter comments if any by 26 April 2017.

    Earlier, the date of 15 February 2017 had been extended to 15 March 2017. The regulator made it clear that no further extension would be given.

    The aim is to establish a comprehensive framework that allows non-discriminatory access to the internet since net neutrality has been a subject of debate between content providers and telecom operators.

    TRAI  posed 14 questions that attempt to define the concept of net neutrality in the Indian context in a 65-page document. This follows a pre-consultation paper on the subject last May. The aim is to ensure that access is not, blocked, throttled or preferentially treated by service providers.

    “The purpose of this second stage of consultation is to proceed towards the formulation of final views on policy or regulatory interventions, where required, on the subject of NN (net neutrality),” Trai said in the paper.

    The paper said telecom service providers (TSPs) have to adopt traffic management practices to ensure network efficiency but that these should not be misused.

    Also Read:

    TRAI issues fresh paper seeking views on Net Neutrality definition

    Net Neutrality ideas date open till 28 Feb

  • Justice dept working on legal literacy, MIB scotches reports of new channel

    NEW DELHI: Even as the Department of Justice is working with the human resource development and ministry of information and broadcasting to create a pool of shorts and documentaries to increase awareness about legal literacy, there is no plan to launch a separate television channel for this purpose.

    An MIB source told indiantelevision.com that it had not been approached by the law ministry for any separate channel. A Doordarshan source also confirmed that it had informed the department of justice that films on legal literacy were being regularly telecast on its national, news and regional channels.

    A law ministry source confirmed that any pool of films would be shown on DD, but details are yet to be worked out.

    The aim of the department of justice is to increase legal empowerment of the marginalised communities through increased awareness amongst the people about their rights and entitlements. For this purpose, the department proposes to widely disseminate awareness of rights and duties through the medium of TV which it says “has been an effective medium for education and awareness and for reaching out to maximum number of people.”

    The department noted that it has been seen that short films as a medium of increasing awareness have a larger impact as they are useful for semi-literate and illiterate masses.

    The aim is to create a pool of short films/ documentaries on socio-legal issues which will then be broadcast in partnership. Due credits will be given to the ministry/department or agency which has developed the video content.

    Meanwhile, the department is also organising a Legal Literacy Video Contest 2017 for which entries have been invited from civil societies, individuals, and educational institutes. The themes are: Child Rights; Women Rights; Rights of Persons with Special Needs; Rights of Undertrial persons; Fundamental Duties; Welfare of socially and economically backward classes of society and persons under circumstances of caste atrocity; ethnic violence; Juvenile Justice and Forest and Indigenous Communities.

    The department will also felicitate the efforts of civil society, individuals and academic institutions working in the area of legal aid and empowerment of the marginalised communities by announcing awards for short films/documentaries under these categories.

    The details to submit entries for awards by civil society, individuals, and educational institutions under the Legal Literacy Video Contest 2017 are available on the department’s website. The last date for submission of entries is 27 March 2017.

    The Department of Justice has been allocated the function of legal aid to poor; administration of justice access to justice delivery and judicial reforms under Allocation of Business Rules 1961. Towards this mandate the Department of Justice is implementing these two projects on Access to Justice for Marginalised in seventeen States of India which include Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Odisha, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh, eight States of North East and Jammu and Kashmir.

    Both the Projects aim at strengthening access to justice for the marginalized – particularly women, scheduled castes, scheduled tribes, minorities, senior citizens, undertrial prisoners – by supporting strategies and initiatives that seek to address the barriers they face as well as to improve the institutional capacities of key justice service providers, to enable them to effectively serve the poor and disadvantaged.

  • House panel pans MIB for funds under-use in plan schemes

    NEW DELHI: The ministry of information and broadcasting (MIB) needs to strengthen its monitoring mechanism by way of periodic review and mid-term appraisal of all major Schemes and undertake necessary corrective measures for proper implementation of Schemes and full utilisation of funds made available to them.

    The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Information Technology which also examines issues relating to Information and Broadcasting Ministry has made this comment while noting that the Ministry is hopeful that the link between spending and outcome will improve and the total expenditure would become more focused with the dispensing of the distinction of Plan and non-Plan allocation from 2017-18.

    The Committee has taken note of the new initiatives taken for rational allocation of funds and trust that the strategic intervention would reverse the trend and help in prudent and optimal utilisation of funds in the current fiscal.

    In its comments with regard to utilisation of the Twelfth Five Year Plan Funds, the Committee noted that the Ministry has on an average utilised 96 percent of Revised Estimates (RE) during the first four years of 12th Five Year Plan (2012-13 to 2015-16).

    The performance of the Ministry with regard to financial targets shows that during the entire Twelfth Five Year Plan (2012-17), the Ministry has been able to utilise Rs 34.8945 billion against the revised estimated allocation of Rs 37.78 billion.

    As against the proposed outlay of Rs 217.31 billion, the erstwhile Planning Commission had approved Gross Budgetary Support (GBS) of Rs 75.83 billion for the Twelfth Five Year Plan (2012-17) for the Ministry.

    Further, a provision of Rs 10 billion had been kept for Internal and Extra Budgetary Resources (IEBR) by Prasar Bharati for financing New Content Development Scheme of Prasar Bharati for the Twelfth Five Year Plan (2012-17).

    Thus, a total outlay of Rs 85.83 billion had been approved for funding the various Plan Schemes of the Ministry during the Twelfth Plan Period. In each of these years, the Budget allocation to the Ministry was substantially reduced at the RE stage.

    This trend however changed during the year 2016-17 where the Budget allocation has actually increased from Rs.8 billion at budget estimate (BE) stage to Rs.8.6 billion at RE stage and the utilisation of funds was 80 percent as on 21 February 2017.

    Overall, the Committee noted that despite the Ministry’s efforts to improve plan expenditure and optimise allocation in the Plan Schemes, there have been under utilisation of funds.

    The reasons attributed for sub-optimal utilisation relate to finalisation of RE 2016-17 (Plan) in January 2017, long procurement process of Prasar Bharati for procurement of goods and services and delay in approval of the new Schemes under the three sectors.

    Noting that the reasons are found to be repetitive and certainly give an impression that the Ministry has failed to bring in the desired administrative efficiency and fiscal planning over the years, the Committee expressed the hope that the procurement process of Prasar Bharati will be streamlined expeditiously.

    Also Read :

    Ensure full use of funds for schemes, house panel tells MIB

    Budget ’17: Prasar Bharati grant-in-aid down, film sectoAr’s aid up

     

  • Prog & Advt Code violation: 30 channels faced action in 2015 & 2016

    NEW DELHI: Action was taken in 33 cases involving around 30 television channels during 2015 and 2016 for violation of the Programme and Advertising Codes of the Government.

    These include cases of seventeen violations in 2015 and 16 in 2016, the information and broadcasting minister M Venkaiah Naidu told the Parliament today.

    While most of these resulted in warnings or advisories along with apology scrolls to the channels, some channels were forced to stop transmission for fixed periods.

    In addition, the Government issued 15 general advisories to the television channels on various issues which included coverage of anti-terrorist operations, facilitating the differently-abled viewers, sports, communal riots, victims of violence such as rape, misleading advertisements, superstitions, and so on.

    Seven of these advisories were issued to news channels.

    He said that according to existing regulatory framework, private satellite TV channels are required to adhere to the Programme and Advertising Codes prescribed under the Cable Television Networks (Regulation) Act, 1995 and Cable Television Network Rules, 1994 framed thereunder which contain a gamut of criteria to be followed while carrying programmes and advertisement in such TV channels.

  • Prasar Bharati’s main role is of pubcaster, not revenue generator, says Rathore

    NEW DELHI: Stressing that revenue generation is not the main objective of Prasar Bharati, the Parliament was today told that the pubcaster is generating its revenue through Internal Extra Budgetary Resources (IEBR) to meet its operating expenses.

    Minister of state for information and broadcasting Rajyavardhan Rathore said in reply to a question that the government was providing 100 per cent salary support to Prasar Bharati, apart from plan grant for creation of capital assets and content development.

    He said that Prasar Bharati’s primary mandate was to organise and conduct public broadcasting service with the intent to inform, educate and entertain the public and to ensure a balanced development of broadcasting on radio and television in the country.

    Listing various achievements as an outcome of measures taken in recent years, he said the capability of the direct to home platform FreeDish had been increased from 59 to 104 TV channels of which 80 are already on air, and orders had been placed for implementation of Indian Conditional Access System (iCAS).

    (DD sources told indiantelevision.com that these 80 were on MPEG-2 , while the remainder will be on MPEG-4 which has been tested and the auction process to fill those slots has already been initiated.)

    Apart from DD Kisan, the minister added, that 24-hour Doordarshan channels had been launched in Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and Saptagiri from Vijaywada.

    The technical facility for launch of new TV Channel DD Arunprabha for the north east had been completed.

    Earth stations had been set up at Indore, Rajkot, Vijayawada and Jalpaiguri and the earth station at Leh, Chandigarh, Hisar, Panaji, and Port Blair (except RF equipment) had been modernised.

    Other steps included:

    High Definition television (HDTV) studios set up at Delhi and Mumbai; digitisation of 39 studios; commissioning of a permanent studio set up at Dehradun; multichannel automated playback facility set up and installation of multi camera studio production facility in HDTV format in progress at Central Production Centre in Delhi; Media Asset Management for archive system set up at Kolkata; HDTV outside broadcast (OB) vans supplied at Delhi and Mumbai; and six Digital Satellite News Gathering (DSNG) vans deployed.

    Referring to status of transmitters, he said 19 digital High Power Transmitters (Digital Video Broadcasting-and Generation Terrestrial) (DVB-T2) had been supplied and 16 digital HPTs commissioned; four HDTV transmitters supplied and installed; a HPT commissioned in Cannanore, apart from a Very Low Power Transmitter (VLPT) at Joginder Nagar.

    Ageing HPTs had been replaced by new 10 KW HPTs at 14 locations and 111 auto-mode LPTs supplied & commissioned.