| NEW
DELHI: The reports of the Broadcast Engineers Consultancy India Ltd (Becil) on
quality of service audit report has said Conditional Access System (Cas) has been
well implemented, but has asked each MSO to improve certain aspects of its functioning
to meet QoS standards of Trai. The
sector regulator had on January 10 met MSOs and informed them of the results of
the audit that Becil had been asked to conduct in the mandated Cas areas of the
three metros, Calcutta, Delhi and Bombay, but has ordered them not to open their
mouths in the media. There
is insistence on complete confidentiality, and the regulator met each MSO individually,
so it would be easy to identify who spilled the beans if anyone speaks, hence
none of the MSOs are willing to speak a word on it. However,
it is reliably learnt that the Becil report points out that people are demanding
channels and getting the ones they demand in the vast majority of cases, and not
vice versa, which is the essence of Cas. The
other part which is intrinsic to Cas is that broadcasters are paid on a monthly
basis on the actual number of people demanding their channels as recorded in the
Subscriber Management System in the set top boxes of subscribers. It
is also learnt that the report is satisfied that this too is being done, though
there are some minor instances of piracy by local operators. "The
rest of it is procedural," an expert on Cas explained, which calls for fine
tuning, but there is no problem with Cas implementation as such. The
Becil survey has traced the lacunae each MSO has been suffering from and placed
on record what needs to be done by them.
It
may be recalled that last July, Trai had said that there were issues of QoS implementation,
and the largest volume of complaints were on billing, warning that it would, if
required, appoint a survey agency to audit the reports of compliance MSOs had
filed regarding QoS implementation. Becil
had later been appointed by Trai, and had become a parallel process of QoS implementation
survey, along with the one ordered by the ministry, which was to be conducted
by the nodal officers in charge of Cas rollout in the three metros. In
the meanwhile, on the issue of bills not reaching customers, Trai had said that
MSOs should send their own bills, whether the LCOs sent theirs or not. MSOs
had then pointed out that this would go against the regulation itself, which said
that MSOs should generate the pay channel bills and a single, composite bill comprising
pay and FTA channels for each Cas subscriber would be sent by the LCO. There
was considerable confusion over this issue and Trai had told indiantelevision.com
in October last year that it would take into consideration the positions of all
stakeholders, including LCOs, and then issue its final clarification. It
is believed that in the meeting on January 10, that issue was also discussed,
but there was no clarity on what the final decision is, as no one is willing to
talk anything on the meeting at all. | 
