DishTV, Tata Sky seek govt help on Trai move

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Ashish Sinha | Business Standard | New Delhi, February 12, 2008

DTH service providers upset over telecom regulator's proposal to make upgradation of STB mandatory:wall:.
Dish TV and Tata Sky, the two major DTH companies, have sought compensation from the government for the upgrade of the existing DTH set-top boxes due to the mandatory upgrade proposed by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai).
If Trai’s recommendations are accepted, it will affect the existing 5 million DTH subscribers as both Dish TV and Tata Sky will have to upgrade their set-top boxes to make them interoperable with the new DTH service providers such as Big TV (Reliance Communications), Sun Direct (Sun Network) and Bharti Telemedia’.
This might cost the two companies Rs 500-750 crore:hysterical:, the sources said. Interoperability means when a consumer decides to change his DTH operator, he can do so without changing the set-top box.
But with new players using the MPEG-4 technology, around 5 million DTH subscribers of MPEG-2-compliant set-top boxes will be affected.
“If a consumer of BIG TV decides to shift the service from Dish TV or Tata Sky, he will not be able to do so as MPEG-4 and MPEG-2 set-top boxes are non-interoperable. Under the law, all DTH operators need to have technical interoperable set-top boxes. This will give undue advantage to the new DTH companies,” said a DTH expert.
According to the recent Trai recommendations, while the government has asked the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) to review the current interoperability norms for DTH set-top boxes, new players such as BIG TV can go ahead with their DTH service launch.
If this happened, the existing DTH lincesing norms would be violated, said technical experts from Dish TV and Tata Sky.
“The existing DTH licensing norms clearly state that all DTH players will have to seed only those set-top boxes that are technically interoperable. To make our set-top boxes interoperable, we spent an extra $4-5 a box:thumbsup:. Now, if the reverse-interoperability is not enforced, there will be a dilution of DTH licensing norms as well as huge financial implications for us,” said Anshuman Sharma, chief legal and regulatory affairs officer, Tata Sky.
agencyfaqs! > news & features > DishTV, Tata Sky seek govt help on Trai move
 
these ppl purposely do all these things. next they wud move to TDSAT and if they fail there, they will move to high court.
 
i totally agree with you i am lawyer for 15 year yes i totally agree with you that they will apply tactic like this and all you know is the customer suffer ultimately:madness::madness::evil: most these ppl purposely do all these things. next they wud move to TDSAT and if they fail there, they will move to high court.
 
No compensation for [COLOR=blue ! important][COLOR=blue ! important]STB[/COLOR][/COLOR] upgradation to DTH players: Trai Indiantelevision.com Team
(12 February 2008 3:30 pm)

MUMBAI: The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) has dismissed the reported demand from two direct-to-home (DTH) players - Tata Sky and [COLOR=blue ! important][COLOR=blue ! important]Dish [COLOR=blue ! important]TV[/COLOR][/COLOR][/COLOR] - that they should be compensated to the tune of Rs 6 billion if they are to upgrade their old set-top boxes (STBs) to MPEG4 format.
According to reports in the media, Tata Sky and Dish TV have sent individual letters to the government saying that since the new entrants - like Reliance ADAG and Bharti Airtel - would give feed in the MPEG4 format, the clause of interoperability of STBs would hurt the existing players.
The clause of interoperability says that STBs for DTH should be interoperable between all DTH service providers, so that subscribers can change from one to another without changing their STBs.
Hence, the grouse of the existing players is that if people choose to migrate from the new players - who will give their feed on the MPEG4 format- to the older players, it would not be possible, as the latter use the MPEG2 format.
The two companies have, thus, reportedly asked the government to fund them for makeover to the MPEG4 format for their combined subscription base of five million, because all these STBs have to be changed.
"The question does not arise for government funding," a senior Trai official told indiantelevision.com. "I am not even sure whether the companies have actually written to the government. But they have certainly not written to Trai."
The official said that these new players did not put in any such objection with Trai when the consultation process for formulating the regulation was on.
He added, "Even if they have written to the government, there is no substance in the demand, as the regulation clearly says that existing subscribers will continue to get the feed on MPEG2 format, and only new subscribers will have to be given on MPEG4."
He said that even for the existing players, the same suppliers who are giving the MPEG2 STBs shall give the higher version, and TataSky and dishtv can give their new connections from there.

Indiantelevision.com's > Digital Edge > No compensation for STB upgradation to DTH players: Trai
 
TRAI is stupid three times over. Why not pass a law legislating that all tires sold in India should be compatible? I should be able to fix a truck tire to a bicycle and a scooter tyre to an aeroplane.If you want to make things compatible, at least think about the technology involved. What is the point forcing people to upgrade even if they don't want to or can't afford to? Those who want mpeg4 should pay for it. No point raising the costs for other people who wisely stayed away from dth all this time.I want use my land line phone with an airtel cellular connection. Will the TRAI please look into the matter.
 
TRAI is doing what is being done in many countries. Many countries have set some technical parameters for telecom services, like GSM/CDMA in mobile, then encryption/transmission in DTH, For e.g. in Dubai I know all providers use IRDETO encryption & MPEG-2 (as MPEG-4 was not introduced then), and all services can be received by using IRDETO CAM on any CI compatible STB's. Then in Europe many countries recommend VIACCESS encryption. So its not wrong in TRAI setting common technique for DTH. But they should have done it lot earlier
 

Read again, TRAI is not asking, or making it mandatory for old customers. Its just saying that now on, for new customers, it shud be compatible. So where is the question of upgradation?These operators already know all these. They are just coming out with new new objections so as to delay their launch of compatible STBs as far as possible. Remember they have purchased STBs in bulk. So they already have mpeg2 STBs in stock, may be, lakhs of STBs. Its not possible for them to upgrade those STBs.If rules come in to effect immediately, those lakhs of STB wud just have to sent to dumpyard. Causing millions of rupees loss to them.So if this is delayed by say six months or so most of their STB wud get sold and the new batch of STB they order can have MPEG4 compatibility
 
“The existing DTH licensing norms clearly state that all DTH players will have to seed only those set-top boxes that are technically interoperable. To make our set-top boxes interoperable, we spent an extra $4-5 a box. Now, if the reverse-interoperability is not enforced, there will be a dilution of DTH licensing norms as well as huge financial implications for us,” said Anshuman Sharma, chief legal and regulatory affairs officer, Tata Sky.

TRAI is in a catch 22 situation. TS and Dishtv STBs are interoperable for mpeg2. Their demand is the new players must ensure that that their STBs are interoperable with mpeg2 transmission. The new players must be made to conform to old rules; let us what the technical department of indian standards will do now!
 
so why are they asking for billions of rs?reliance is yet to enter, sun has just entered. sun shud be having mpeg2 support already as otherwise it wont be able to show any DD FTA channels.so whats the fuss, let reliance launch and if mpeg2 support is not their then let TRAI take action against reliance. why are u (tataskya and dth) creating nuisance? and who gave u right to ask for money?and those 4-5 dollars, did they NOT pass it on to customers to pay for? 4-5dollars is what? 250Rs max.. how much did they charge customer for STB earlier? 3000Rs and how much are they charging now? 1500Rs. Tata Sky already said that they are passing benefits they got to customers when they reduced STB price. didnt they? which means earlier they were paying extra and hence they charged extra to customers. now they got benefit so they are passing benefit to customers.(these all statements are also to ACT AS CUSTOMER friendly company) so overall customer has already paid them for THOSE EXTRA 4-5 dollars. so why are they askign billions from government?and whatever, if govt pays them, whose money is it? its collected from TAXes the people paid to government. so they want us to pay two times for same STB? these double faced ppl shud be banned from country.tatasky ab sirf 1499, 1500 main nahi! they dont even have that conditions apply asterix (like 1499*) in the advertisement. and when customer inquires, it comes out to be atleast 2799Rs
 
How can you have interoperability standards in broadcast technology? Things keep changing all the time. The mpeg2 and mpeg4 compression algorithms are different and so are their hardware implementations. Even within them there are numerous variations. If TRAI mandates interoperability across the board, every STB will have to compatible with every other box. So TS and Dish will have to make their boxes mpeg4 compatible and the newer cos. will have to make theirs mpeg2 compatible if they are not already. What if a new tech is brought in the day after tomorrow?The only solution to this is a software implementation of the algo. As and when technology changes, the software can be flashed. STB manufacturers must have surely thought about this. Maybe it is too costly or inefficient to implement on a cheap device.Remove this interoperability clause. Those who want to move to mpeg 4 from existing STBs should pay for it. Why should new subscribers have to waste 10 bucks to make their boxes mpeg2 compatible? Maybe Reliance and Bharti can offer an exchange scheme like the white goods companies offer. Offer 500 bucks for your old box and scrap it. And the TRAI can go and do something useful. If this is not done, TRAI will have to make exceptions every time a new player enters the market with a better offering.
 

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