Consumer Not King? DTH, Cable Users Accuse Operators Of Moving Them To ‘Junk Packs’ Ahead Of TRAI Deadline

Various DTH and Cable users have accused their respective operators of moving them to ‘Junk Packs’ ahead of TRAI’s 31 January deadline to enforce new regulations, Ultra News has reported.

Under the new TRAI regulations, users would just need to pay for the channels they want to watch and hence not waste money on unwanted ones. Further, the new regulations will bring in a change in the base prices of TV packs as well.

Thus, all the broadcasters need to list the prices of their channel. They though would be allowed to introduce packs at revised prices, which will result in lower cost for customers.

As per the report, customers have complained that their operator is not allowing them to pick and choose their channels and is instead offering them a choice of four to five base packs.

Some have even complained that they are not even being given a chance to choose base packs and are automatically being moved to a non-modifiable base pack with 100 free to air channels.

The DTH operators in their defence have claimed that it is a very cumbersome process to collect an individual list of channels from each customer before the 31 January deadline and are hence putting customers under a “pre-designed starter pack”.

TRAI meanwhile has reiterated that customers indeed have a choice to customise packs as per their wishes.

As per TRAI, for 100 Standard Definition (SD) channels, the maximum amount needs to be Rs 130, and if a customer opts more than 100 SD channels, he/she needs to pay additional network capacity of a maximum price of Rs 20 per slab for the 25 extra channels in each slab.