Category: Software

NEW DELHI: The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has expressed serious concern over the slow progress in filling up of consumer details in Kolkata despite a deadline of 23 August for subscriber application forms (CAF).

After a meeting in Kolkata with multi-system operators who are required to update their subscriber management system for supplying signals to cable operators, TRAI said only around 30 per cent of the subscriber information was available with the MSOs. The meeting was addressed by N Parameswaram, Principal Advisor (Broadcasting) in TRAI.

‘This situation is totally unacceptable and alarming‘, a press note signed by Parameswaram said, adding that all MSOs have been asked to initiate immediate steps to remedy the situation.

He said TRAI may be forced to take penal action against MSOs/ local cable operators in case the deadline is not met.

While requesting subscribers to cooperate, he said that MSOs would have no option but to switch off signals to those subscribers who have not given complete CAFs by 23 August.

Furthermore, he said MSOs who do not switch off the signals to offending subscribers would be in breach of the law.

NEW DELHI: Connected TV is rapidly evolving in MENA region (Middle East and North Africa), with providers, broadcasters and manufacturers such as STC, OSN (Orbit Showtime Network) and Samsung already offering consumers increased access to content through smart devices.

This growing saturation of the market provides the backdrop for this year‘s TV Connect MENA, which has developed in recent years to focus on IPTV, OTTtv, multiscreen and cloud TV services for regional service providers.

The number of connected devices, particularly tablets, is fuelling demand for OTT, cloud and multiscreen services in MENA, and is expected to dramatically increase over the next five years. Informa Telecoms and Media reports that 6.5 million tablets were sold across the Middle East and Africa in 2012. That figure is forecast to increase to a staggering 32.1 million in 2016.

Informa Telecoms & Media research analyst Michael Dean comments on the growth opportunity: “The OTT-content and services landscape across MENA has traditionally been rather barren, but the situation is changing quickly with OTT start-ups starting to emerge, and the number of rival operator initiatives increasing.

“Mobile broadband may currently be in the nascent stages across much of the region but it is increasingly becoming a greater growth area for rural internet users in many MENA markets. In addition, the Gulf Cooperation Council is scheduling to have LTE networks in place by end-2013, meaning there will be a further rise in mobile data usage. This will undoubtedly place more demand on increased content delivery. Saudi Arabia and the UAE alone already have traditionally high levels of TV content consumption. For example, according to OSN, the average household watches six to seven hours of TV content per day,” adds Dean.

Focussing on OTTtv, multiscreen and cloud TV services, and the opportunities within the IPTV industry, the annual TV Connect MENA, holds more relevance than ever for service providers, telecom/cable/satellite operators, broadcasters, content providers, gaming aggregators and CE manufacturers.

TV Connect MENA conference director Kamelija Stefanova comments: “The event will explore OTT and IPTV convergence; offer presentations about developing content monetisation strategies; look at the business of CDNs and data centers for telecom operators; assess the role of advertising agencies in the connected media space; show best practise OTT and IPTV projects; and see how multiscreen services are becoming part of the digital home. We as organisers are in a unique position to provide one meeting place for broadband, LTE and TV markets and offer learning opportunities for maximising the power of 4G/LTE network to offer TV on the Go, utilising user interface for improved content discovery and using apps for on-demand video services.”

NEW DELHI: A total of about 300,000 telephone connections of un-registered telemarketers have been disconnected by the Access Service Providers and the name and address of 25,295 such subscribers have been put into the blacklist.

Minister of State for Communications and Information Technology Milind Deora told Parliament that this follows concerted action taken by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI).

TRAI issued the Telecom Commercial Communications Customer Preference (Twelfth Amendment) Regulation on 23 May this year. This regulation provides for disconnection of all the telecom resources of subscribers sending unsolicited calls/SMSs, blacklisting of the name and address of such subscribers for two years, disconnection of telecom resources to such subscriber by the other service providers within twenty four hours of blacklisting of such subscriber. No telecom resources shall be allotted to such blacklisted subscriber by any Access Provider for two years.

Through the Telecom Commercial Communications Customer Preference Regulation, 2010 TRAI has laid down a revised framework for addressing Unsolicited Commercial Communications (UCC) and these regulations came into force with effect from 27 September 2011. TRAI has also issued various amendments to these regulations and a number of directions to make the regulatory framework more effective.

The Minister said complaints related to unauthorised telemarketing activity from un-registered telemarketers (who are not registered with TRAI), had increased during the last one year.

To make the framework more effective an amendment to the Telecom Commercial Communications Customer Preference Regulation (Tenth Amendment) has been issued by TRAI on 5 November last year to further control the unsolicited commercial communications, especially relating to commercial SMS from unregistered telemarketers. One of the key provision of this regulation includes restricting unregistered telemarketers from sending bulk promotional SMSs using software applications.

Through this regulation TRAI has mandated the Access Service Providers to put in place a solution, which will ensure that no commercial SMSs are sent having same or similar characters or strings or variants from any source or number. The solution will ensure that no more than 200 SMSs with such similar ‘signature‘ are sent in an hour. 

NEW DELHI: The Cellular Operators Association of India has welcomed the advisory sent by the Department of Telecommunications to state governments on mobile tower guidelines, saying the norms clearly segregate emission aspects from structural requirements.

The DoT has asked the states to refrain from sealing mobile towers or disconnecting power supply to them without the permission of its unit, TERM cell, on account of radiation related issues.

COAI director general Rajan S Mathews said in a statement: “We are working closely with the DoT to ensure that all safety norms are made universal and fears of the public about the telecom towers are removed.”

He said the positive aspect of the guidelines is a clear distinction and segregation of emission (EMF) aspects from structural requirements. “The new guidelines have clearly stated that EMF aspects, compliance of RF exposure field emissions, issues related to SACFA, licence etc are to be handled solely by the DoT‘s TERM cells,” it added.

COAI said the guidelines encourage a nominal one-time fee, single window clearance, and electricity connection on priority for mobile towers.

“These are welcome steps for the industry which has been contending with a complex system and procedural delays which are hindrance towards the much required development of telecom infrastructure in the country,” it added.

India has already implemented stricter radiation norms than are followed by other countries, DoT officials said.

Industry representatives maintain that due to the lack of awareness on radiation, people object to the installation or working of mobile towers.

Around 5,000 towers in Delhi and Mumbai were termed illegal by local authorities and shut down.

NEW DELHI: In an effort to reach its target of 97 channels by the end of this year, Prasar Bharati is auctioning six slots on its free-to-air direct-to-home platform DD Direct Plus by e-auction.

A Bangalore based private firm – Synise Technologies – has been chosen to conduct the e-auction which commenced yesterday.

It is also learnt that Prasar Bharati is considering carrying out a change in its policy to try and get the best of channels on its DTH service.

Currently, Doordarshan‘s DTH platform offers 59 channels of which 30 are private, 21 of DD, Lok Sabha TV, Rajya Sabha TV and two channels run by the UGC.

Four foreign channels – NHK, ABC, France 24 and Russia Sunday – complete the bouquet of channels on the DTH wing.

“The capacity to carry channels on our DTH wing is set to increase significantly as Doordarshan is planning to buy equipment that will allow it to utilise an additional transponder on satellite INSAT 4B,” a DD official told indiantelevision.com.

Prasar Bharati CEO Jawhar Sircar has earlier said another aspect that the broadcaster is considering is how it can get better quality channels on its DTH wing. “We are considering framing a policy by next year which will allow the best of channels to be shown on our DTH platform,” Sircar said.

There was a need to consider a new policy which would be transparent but also to ensure that the best of channels prefer to come to the Doordarshan platform so that they can be shown to viewers all across the country, he said.

MUMBAI: Smartphone and tablet manufacturing giant Samsung has decided to offer user interface and access to content for its users in nine Indian languages. These will be supported on Galaxy Grand, Galaxy S4 and Tab 3. These nine languages will be Hindi, Punjabi, Bengali, Tamil, Telegu, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi and Gujarati.

The languages will be available on more affordable phones within this month itself. This initiative has been created especially for the Indian market. Applications from the Samsung store such as Bharat Matrimony, India Property, Times of India will be available in the vernacular languages. Select phones will also have Facebook, Gmail and the likes in the nine languages.

Samsung Mobile and IT, India Head, Vineet Taneja said “We clearly sense a need and a demand amongst users to communicate in local languages using their mobile devices. That is the reason, as an industry leader, we are taking the lead by offering users the ease of accessing regional language content in their preferred language.”

More devices will be added as well as more languages.

NEW DELHI: Fifteen telemarketers have been blacklisted while another 245 have been issued notices by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India for unwanted calls and text messages.

The regulator has also deducted Rs 1.36 crore security deposit for violations of various norms. TRAI, which had implemented Telecom Commercial Communications Customer Preference Regulations from 27 September 2011, had laid down that telemarketers have to deposit some amount to their service provider as security deposit.

The 15 telemarketers have been blacklisted from 27 September 2011 till 25 June this year, and the deduction of security deposit is for violations from 27 September 2011 to 30 July 2013.

There is a provision of deduction from Rs 25,000 to Rs 2.5 lakh in case of violation by telemarketers under the regulations. Telemarketers are required to register with TRAI in order to send commercial communications to telecom consumers.

Subscribers who have registered with the National Customer Preference Registry, earlier known as ‘Do Not Call Registry‘ are not supposed to receive commercial communications.

A different set of numbers starting with ‘70‘ were issued to telemarketers to help unregistered subscribers identify commercial calls and decide whether to accept or reject them. But TRAI has come across instances when the commercial communication was not sent by the registered telemarketers.

MUMBAI: Gozoop, which recently acquired Red Digital, won the social media mandate for the e-commerce portal, dhamaal.com. The objective of the whole campaign is to drive traffic to their website and make it the best shopping portal in India.

The activity will be carried out in two phases. The first phase will create awareness of the portal and make customers comfortable with the platform, while in the second phase dhamaal.com will move on to promote their categories of product and gratify the fans by holding exciting contests.

Commenting on this, Gozoop managing director (India) and co-founder Ahmed Naqvi said, “GoZoop is excited to make things happen for Dhamaal. We look forward to run awesome campaigns and deliver results that help build lasting relationships between Dhamaal and its customers. It‘s all about making people happy, the results will follow.”

He further added, “The initial feedback has been quite overwhelming. Having worked with most of the e-commerce companies in India, we bring to the table an experience and expertise that will deliver a wow.”

“Gozoop was our first choice the minute we decided to go for a social media campaign as we had worked with them in the past and were very happy and satisfied with their level of service and professionalism. We are sure that with Gozoop‘s association, our brand and website Dhamaal.com will get the necessary exposure it needs and will become a success in a very short time,” said Dhamaal.com CEO Hanif Sama.

Dhamaal.com is an online market place selling products ranging from apparels, watches, mobiles and electronics to home and lifestyle items like washing machines and televisions. Since its inception Gozoop has worked with e-commerce portals like Snapdeal, FashionandYou, Quikr, Groupon, Majorbrands, Deals&You, Pepperyfry and Rocket Internet Startups among many others.

NEW DELHI: A total of 29,782 direct-to-home boxes are set to receive Doordarshan’s free-to-air DD Direct Plus, including 20,397 in hilly areas of Himachal Pradesh, which have been provided by the government to 16 states where terrestrial signals are not easily available.

These include 2,277 in Rajasthan and 1,942 in Madhya Pradesh, according to the Information and Broadcasting Ministry.

Doordarshan provides free-to-air with a bouquet of 59 TV channels (19 Doordarshan channels and 40 other TV channels). DTH signals can be received by using a set top box and small sized dish receiver units.

As these signals can be received anywhere in the country except Andaman and Nicobar Islands, DTH service in C-band with bouquet of 10 channels is in operation in the Islands.

The DTH sets have been provided in various states for uncovered areas as part of DTH Scheme and Special NE package (Phase-I).

Prasar Bharati has informed that 21 channels of All India Radio are available through the platform throughout the country.