TRAI Issues Show Cause Notice To Airtel DTH After Subscribers Face Blackout During Transition To New Tariff Regime

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has issued a show cause notice to Bharti Telemedia owned Airtel direct-to-home (DTH) after few customers faced blackout during the switch to the new tariff framework, Economic Times reports.

According to sources, the regulatory body served the notice earlier this week and gave Airtel DTH three days to reply, PTI reports. The new TRAI Tariff order and regulatory regime for the cable and broadcast industry were initially implemented on 28 December but extended by a month to allow DTH subscribers and service providers to adapt to the system.

Under the new system, DTH subscribers need to pay for the channels they want to watch and hence not waste money on channels they do not watch. The TRAI had also warned all service providers and told them to ensure there was no blackout during the transition period.

A spokesman of Airtel, when contacted, said that a few customers might have faced a delay in the providing the channels as there was a massive spike in last minute requests to shift to the new system. He reassured that the operator is still committed to moving their subscribers to the new system the compliance per the TRAI norms.