(4 August 2007 3:30 pm)

NEW DELHI: The ministry of Information & Broadcasting has said it will convene an inter-ministerial meeting to deal with the issue of IPTV, as there is no clarity on who is going to control the content streamed through it, industry sources told Indiantelevision.com.

The two bodies, MSO Alliance and Cable Operators Federation of India (COFI), met with the secretary and additional secretary of the ministry earlier this week and got the assurance from I&B secretary Asha Swarup.

Swarup has said reportedly that she would study the detailed paper that has been presented on the subject by MSO Alliance, though additional secretary Pradeep Singh expressed initial regret that the ministry would not deal with the subject since the Business Allocation Rules of the government said that IPTV is a telecom issue.

The meeting with the secretaries lasted for sometime and the intractable issue that emerged is that while the platform is under the control of the Department of Telecom, the latter does not have any expertise on the subject of content.

The MSO Alliance secretary Arvind Mohan and COFI president Roop Sharma stressed the point that pornography was already available on the net, as is anti-India propaganda, so there is a need to control the medium.

The government felt that since it was an issue of internet, it fell under the jurisdiction of telecom, though the industry leaders pointed out that the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai)is what controls the broadcasting industry and the Telecom Disputes Settlement Appellate Tribunal (Tdsat) adjudicates over it.

"In fact, the law as it stands says broadcasting services is a part of the telecom services, which is something the government has been overlooking on the issue of IPTV," Mohan told Indiantelevision.com.

"After all, the platform does not matter. It is what the people see on the screen, and what they would see is video, which is the same as that on television. So why have divergent standards, or rather, standards and restrictions for one and none for the other?" Sharma asked.

She said that a cable operator could be jailed for showing pornography, but an IPTV service provider will not be. So there is need to bring IPTV under the ambit of the Cable Network Act.

"There should be either a level playing field, or self regulation for all players," an industry leader has argued.

However, the additional secretary has reportedly said that it is only the Prime Minister's Office that could change the Allocation of Business, hence the industry leaders are now looking to the inter-ministerial meeting for a solution.

Even DTH operators see IPTV as a threat even as their licensing conditions lays several restrictions on content. They too have demanded that IPTV be brought under the Cable Network Act.