Five months after the information and broadcasting (I&B) ministry had sought the regulator’s view on whether there should be a cap on the number of TV channels, the Telecom Regulatory Authority (Trai) has floated a consultation paper on the issue.
Stakeholders have time till April 5 to give their inputs, after which Trai will issue its recommendations. For now, I&B ministry has put fresh channel applications on hold.
Trai has said that satellite resources, including spectrum for uplinking and downlinking, are much in demand for TV channels as well as by the delivery platforms. It has mentioned that during the pre-consultation process, a service provider had indicated there is no shortage at present for C band transponders, whereas there is an acute shortage of Ku band transponders (used for direct to home or DTH service).
But, Trai has said that “the situation in C band could change if a large number of new channels come up and also a number of Headend-In-the-Sky or HITS operators start using C band.”
Service providers, meanwhile, have indicated that some foreign satellites have free transponders in C band. The Trai paper says that as per the Department of Space, no bulk capacity is available in any band at present.
Besides spectrum concern, the I&B ministry is learnt to have been worried because many unknown and ‘suspicious’ entities have been in the race to launch channels.
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