NEW DELHI: Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) chairman Rahul Khullar has said Trai was making efforts to move towards a lighter regulatory regime.

Khullar also said that India urgently needed a new convergence law for the industry to consolidate. As technology was advancing at a rapid pace, there is a need to respond to it accordingly and encourage use of new devices and technologies.

Also, it is imperative to create opportunities for providers of value added services and create for them an environment that is conducive for them to operate and grow.

Khullar pointed out that a lighter regulatory regime would take time "as there is legal ambiguity which needs to be dealt with and then trust has to be built."

"A regulator?s job is not to formulate radical policies. He responds to the policy framework provided by the Government, responds to the changes in market conditions and responds to the changes in technologies," he said.

On enforcement of regulation, Khullar said that if a regulation is implemented, he would ensure that it is enforced as well. at the session on ?Regulatory The Trai chairman felt now is the time for industries which are on the downside to look for opportunities in other sectors. The market should open itself to mergers and acquisitions and spectrum trading, he said.

Speaking on ?Enabling stakeholders consolidation towards sustainable growth?, Nikolai Dobberstein, partner - communications, media & technology practice at A T Kearney said the telecom industry holds a debt of Rs 1,860 billion and it was time for some operators to exit. In the aviation industry, Kingfisher had to face the option of either exiting the market or infusing capital. The telecom sector is also heading the same way, he said.

Dobberstein opined that spectrum should be made available easily including 3G and 4G and no constraints should be on acquisition of any spectrum. The government could also consider privatisation of MTNL and BSNL. He added that the National Telecom Policy - 2012 is a forward looking policy and it can take telecom to the next level if implemented successfully. He was speaking at the India Telecom 2012 conference, organised by FICCI in association with the Department of Telecommunications in the Ministry of Communications & Information Technology.

On ?Regulation to foster business environment and stimulate investment?, Suhail Nathani, partner at Economic Laws Practice, highlighted the opportunities in the world of internet. Internet contributes $30 billion to GDP and is projected to contribute $100 billion by 2015. Today, there are 120 million internet users and this number is estimated to reach half a billion by 2015.

To attract investments, the complexity in obtaining licenses needs to be reduced. Reduction in legal ambiguity in copyright laws and a strong underlying legal system for contractual enforcement is a must. Also, clarity in tax laws and a robust and consistent enforcement mechanism is required, said Nathani.

Raman Jit Singh Chima, senior policy analyst at Google, speaking on ?Regulatory Frameworks in the Internet Age?, remarked, "On internet, more than 76 hours of videos are uploaded per hour and 90 per cent of it becomes online within a minute and is accessible to everyone around the world. This shows how powerful internet is as a medium to share information and knowledge."

Chima said there is a need to promote broadband, meaningful access to the internet, increase bandwidth, connectivity and quality of services and must fulfill consumers? interest and win users? trust. Also, use of new technology must be encouraged and should promote entrepreneurship.

NEW DELHI: The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) has been asked by the Information and Broadcasting (I&B) Ministry to examine whether central or state governments and their entities can enter the television broadcasting and distribution sectors.

Even as the Government has always held the view that central and state governments should not be allowed to enter this arena, the latest action appears to have been triggered by demands from the West Bengal and Tamil Nadu governments to set up their own television channels. The Ministry also admitted that it had received similar requests from other entities of the central government.

The issue of granting permission to state governments or its organs to run Cable TV Networks has been drawing attention of the ministry from time to time particularly with reference to the TRAI recommendations restricting such entities from entering into broadcasting and distribution activities.

The Ministry has therefore sought the views of TRAI regarding the entry in the broadcaster sector of central government ministries and departments / central government-owned companies / central government undertakings / joint venture of the central government and the private sector / central government funded entities; and state government departments/ state government-owned companies / state government undertakings / joint venture of the state government and the private sector / state government funded entities.

TRAI in its recommendations on ?Issues relating to entry of certain entities into Broadcasting and Distribution activities? dated 12 November 2008 was of the view that the state government and their organs may not be permitted to enter into broadcasting and distribution activities.

Under the policy guidelines for uplinking and downlinking of television channels, an applicant seeking permission to set up an uplinking hub / Teleport or uplink/downlink a TV Channel should be a company registered in India under the Companies Act 1956 irrespective of its management control.

The move assumes significance in view of significant growth in the broadcasting sector at a time when the number of TV channels and cable connections in India have grown exponentially.

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Govt asks Trai to draft rules to check cable monopolies

NEW DELHI: The Indian government is keen to have competition in the television ratings system. Seeking to ensure "fair competition, better standard and quality of services", the government has asked the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) to draft recommendations on comprehensive guidelines and accreditation mechanism for agencies involved in measuring television rating points.

The Information and Broadcasting Ministry has asked Trai to come out with guidelines that would ensure that the system contains proper representation and statistically valid sample size of TV homes in both urban and rural areas and all states. It would also ensure third party audit, transparency in selection of people meter homes, secrecy of people meter homes on the panel and grievance redressal mechanism, I&B minister Manish Tewari said.

The Government has also been informed that BARC has taken action to constitute a BARC Advisory High Table.

Meanwhile, the Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC), being established by the Indian Broadcasting Foundation, set up a Technical Committee late last month to proceed with the operational tasks for putting a television rating measurement mechanism in place.

Sashi Sinha, IPG Mediabrands India CEO, is the chairman of the BARC technical committee. Paritosh Joshi, strategist at India TV, and Smita Bhosale, head CMI south at Hindustan Unilever, are its other two members.

The Technical Committee has already met a couple of times. "We will give our recommendations to the Barc Board which will take a final decision (on rolling out Barc). We are expected to meet sometime in January," Sinha tells Indiantelevision.com.

NEW DELHI: The Telecom Disputes Settlement and Appellate Tribunal (Tdsat) has set aside Telecom Regulatory Authority of India‘s (Trai) ban on placement fee and invalidated with Trai requirement that multi-system operators (MSOs) report the basis of carriage fee charged by them to broadcasters.

The basic premise of Tdsat chairman S B Sinha and member P K Rastogi was that the Trai provision on placement fees was‘bad in law as the same restriction is not applicable for the DTH operator‘.

The Tribunal said placement charges, if any, will depend upon the mutual agreement between individual broadcasters and individual MSOs.

Similarly, the tribunal said the regulation on carriage fee is set aside as the said provision is not there for the DTH operators and MSOs in areas outside the four metros where delivery of television channels shifts compulsorily to digital mode from 1 November.

This tribunal order dents broadcasters‘ efforts to substantially cut down on their distribution costs. In fact, news broadcasters have decided to pay just 50-100 paise for every subscriber with a set-top box (STB) per channel per year, which works out to less than 5 per cent of what they pay as carriage fees now.

Tdsat has also set aside the requirement prescribed by Trai that MSOs must create capacity to carry 500 channels after digitisation. It said, "If the market forces play an important and significant role in the matter of carrying capacity of the MSO, the same may not be required to be regulated."

But it added in its 77-page judgment: "However, if the regulator deems it fit, it may consider making provision for MSOs to have capacity to carry number of channels based on different categories of area i.e. city/town/rural area etc. in which MSO will be operating."

The common judgment came on appeals by MSOs and local cable operators (LCOs) challenging the Trai Tariff Order relating to digital addressable systems (DAS), which refers to digital delivery of channels.

The LCOs failed to get any relief on their plea against the revenue sharing pattern of 55:45 on the basic service tier (free to air television channels) of Rs 100 and 65:35 on the upper tier of Rs 150 (combination of FTA and pay channels). Their appeals on revenue sharing were dismissed.

The Tribunal said an appeal relating to revenue sharing and under-declaration was already pending with the Supreme Court, which had ordered‘status quo‘. (The appeal was against an order of TDSAT of 15 January 2009 on a petition against TRAI by the MSO Alliance).

The Tribunal held as valid Clauses (1a), (1b), and (1c) of Section 6 of the Telecommunication (Broadcasting and Cable) Services (Fourth) (Addressable Systems) Tariff Order.

The first clause relates to the‘must carry‘ clause relating to Prasar Bharati and Parliament channels, the second relates to a minimum 100 FTA channels in the BST (basic service tier), and the third says each genre must include at least five channels. The genres are news, infotainment, sports, kids, music, lifestyle, movies, and general entertainment in Hindi, English and the regional language of the concerned area. This section also gives freedom to the MSO to carry channels of other genres in case five channels of any genre are not available in the FTA bouquet.

On the 500-channel head-ends, Tdsat said: "What is more appropriate is that it is one thing to say that a particular system is capable of carrying maximum number of channels, but it is another thing to say that a headend with such capacity is necessary for the entire country. It is now a well settled principle of law that unequals cannot be treated equally. In that view of the matter, in the metropolitan towns like Delhi or in any town having more than ten million population, the choice of a customer may be a wide ranged one, but the said requirement may not serve any purpose in rural and semi-urban areas."

Referring to an issue raised by LCOs, the Tribunal said: "It is difficult for us to go into the factual aspects of the matter as to how the delivery and maintenance expenses can be recovered only from the cost of BST itself and, thus, the share of LCOs would make it possible for them to undertake proper services to the consumers. In the digital regime, the ultimate choice as regards the nature and number of channels subject, of-course, to availability thereof would be on the consumers. We do not find any illegality in the impugned tariff order so far as that aspect of the matter is concerned."

The appeals had been filed by United Cable Operators Welfare Association, LCO Udaya Shankar Roy Chowdhury, MSOs Digicable Networks, Indusind Media Communication Ltd, and Delhi Distribution Company, while broadcasters NDTV, Times Global and India TV, TV Today, Total TV, News Broadcaster‘s Association (NBA), and Indian Broadcasting Foundation (IBF) had filed applications to intervene.

Arguments on the petitions had commenced on 11 September and concluded on 21 September.