The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has amended the Register of Interconnect Agreement (Broadcasting and Cable Services) Regulation and made it mandatory for broadcasters, DTH, HITS, and IPTV service providers to file interconnection agreements annually instead of quarterly.

The first reporting of interconnection agreements shall be done within thirty days from signing of the interconnect agreements in case of DTH operators, HITS, and IPTV service providers. The interconnection filings will be kept for a period of three years from the date of their filing or till the expiry of the validity period of the agreement.

Meanwhile, TRAI has commented on certain issues raised by the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting (I&B) related to the DTH industry. The Ministry is of the view that specification of the STB should be so designed as to ensure effective interoperability both 'intra' and 'inter' between DTH operators using both MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 technologies.

However, the Authority is of the view that upgrading an existing MPEG-2 set top box to MPEG-4 standards by the MPEG-2 DTH operator to facilitate migration of a subscriber to another DTH operator using MPEG-4 standards is technically not feasible and not provided for in the DTH license conditions.

TRAI has also encouraged multiple dwelling unit (MDU) technology. The authority is of the view that each DTH operator needs to install its own specific MDU antenna since sharing of antenna between multiple operators is not possible. The service provider is responsible for compliance with the QoS norms and therefore each service provider will be responsible for the maintenance of its MDU. The MDU technology is expected to boost competition between DTH and cable TV operators.

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