(17 September 2008 7:00 pm)

NEW DELHI: The Television Downlinking Guidelines issued in November 2005 have been amended to include provisions for Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) which was approved by the Union Cabinet on 21 August.

Clause 5.6 of the Downlinking Guidelines now says, "The applicant company shall provide satellite TV channel signal reception decoders only to MSOs/Cable operator registered under the Cable Television Networks (Regulation) Act 1995 or to a Direct-to-Home operator registered under the DTH guidelines issued by Government of India or to an Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) Service Provider duly permitted under their existing telecom license or authorized by Department of Telecom to provide such service."

According to a Gazette Order issued by Information and Broadcasting Ministry Joint Secretary (Broadcasting) Zohra Chatterji, this has been done to enable broadcasters to provide their content to IPTV service providers.

While approving the IPTV Guidelines, the Union Cabinet had also given its approval for amending the policy guidelines for downlinking of TV channels.

Earlier this year, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India had recommended that the uplinking and downlinking guidelines should be amended to enable broadcasters to provide signals to all distributors of TV channels including IPTV service providers.

The regulator had also recommended raising the foreign direct investment cap in IPTV services to 74 per cent as opposed to the current 49 per cent for the cable sector.