NEW DELHI: Telecom regulatory authority of India (Trai) chairman Rahul Khullar today indicated that a consultation paper would be issued shortly about the revenue sharing and other issues related to television channel aggregators under the digital addressable system (DAS).
He assured the cable operators present that the meet was on media ownership and he would meet the LCOs separately on their problems.
As expected, the open house on media ownership where he made the announcement turned out to be a general meet of sorts, with cable operators turning up in great numbers to seek answers to questions facing them including those relating to billing and the consumers refusing to pay the high fee, revenue sharing with MSOs and other issues.
Trai had alerted the police in this regard and restricted entry, and the venue saw the presence of a large number of police personnel.
Trai has already directed the pay broadcasters/aggregators and MSOs to produce in writing the terms and conditions of their interconnection agreements with MSOs or other service providers wherever they are providing cable television services through DAS.
Trai had noted that there has been a hue and cry over the last month. And the broadcasters and MSOs have been extremely slothful in signing channel agreements with each other. The regulator took note of this and asked all of them to furnish the names of the MSO or the service provider with whom the interconnection agreement has been entered into along with the service area covered and the validity period of the said agreement by the week beginning 13 May.
It is expected that the consultation paper would be based on the responses received from broadcasters and aggregators by Trai.
