| COFI
has sent an official communiqué to
Trai, saying that when the government has
failed to extend Cas (conditional access system)
to the rest of the country and there is a
shortage of set-top boxes (STBs), bringing
in HITS is questionable.
Subscribers
have shown a reluctance to go for STBs,
which in the case of Cas is much less costly
than HITS will be. So, how does the government
expect to proceed with digitisation via
the HITS platform?
Since
a HITS headend would cost above Rs 200,000,
COFI asks, "Who will pay for it, the
cable operator, the HITS operator or the
government?"
A
letter from COFI president Roop Sharma says
that the burden will ultimately be on a
subscriber.
"HITS
will add one more stakeholder in the distribution
chain to share the revenue. The burden will
be obviously passed on to the subscribers.
In rural areas, subscribers are not ready
for STBs. They would otherwise have gone
in for DTH (direct-to-home) in large numbers,
which is not the case," Sharma says
in the letter.
With
regard to the last mile operators, the letter
says that once cable operators invest Rs
250,000 to 400,000 on HITS headends, they
will be stuck with a particular HITS operator
for ever because their consumers will become
that of the HITS operator.
"It
will be a marriage without the divorce option,"
adds that letter, repeatedly stressing that
this will amount to monopolisation, not
competition, as Trai says.
"It
is a big loss to a last mile operator to
become a HITS franchisee as he loses his
business, and hence he will resist to the
last doing that," the letter says.
Sharma
reminds Trai that the LCO is still the owner
of the last mile, who, despite all the problems,
has not handed over his network to the multi-system
operators (MSOs) who have been trying this
for the last 13 years.
"Now,
providing HITS licence to the companies
who own MSO operations, DTH operation and
pay channel distribution companies, we are
handing over the last mile control also
in their hands," she says.
Cable
operators prefer to consolidate their networks
using proper digital headends where they
have more opportunities of making revenue
from value-added services.
"They
can become the carriers of all services
provided by the MSOs, broadcasters, ISPs
and telecom companies as digital headends
will enable triple play services in RF as
well as IP," Sharma's letter says.
Sharma
claims that many financial institutions
are showing interest in financing STBs and
that operators are planning to provide them
free to the subscribers.
Cost-effective
headend solutions providing both QAM and
IP outputs are available now as the prices
are crashing. Hence, operators do not want
HITS for digitisation, the letter to Trai
says.
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