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Cable operators in town have found a new excuse to charge extra for set-top boxes after Delhi pushed back the digitisation deadline to October 31, eliminating a last-minute rush that would have helped them jack up prices.
Many cable homes that have decided not to delay switching from analogue to digital are being forced to pay an “installation charge” of anything between Rs 200 to Rs 700, depending on the locality.
So anybody opting for digital cable signals now has to pay at least Rs 1,000 for a set-top box whose stipulated maximum retail price is Rs 799. Boxes of the same quality are being sold to subscribers in Dum Dum and Nagerbazar for Rs 1,200. Residents of the Camac Street neighbourhood are being charged up to Rs 1,500 for a box plus installation.
“The installation charge, if any, shouldn’t be more than Rs 50. All that a technician needs to do is connect the cable that is already there to the TV via the set-top box. He only needs to provide maybe an extra foot of cable along with the box,” an industry insider said.
Multi-system operators (MSO) say they procure the boxes at a higher price but competition with direct-to-home (DTH) players forces them to sell these to their franchisees at Rs 799 each.
“We provide boxes to all our franchisees at the same rate, so the subscriber shouldn’t be charged extra. But we don’t have control over these cable operators,” the director of an MSO said.
The original deadline for digitisation was June 30, which the DTH operators had tried hard to take advantage of. Many of them had increased their staff strength and infrastructure in anticipation of a rush to switch to DTH.
On the other side of the satellite television divide, the demand-supply mismatch had allowed some cable operators to charge a premium for boxes that were in stock. Now they are adding an installation charge to the price of every set-top box.
“I had purchased a box for Rs 873 in April. When I wanted another one for a second TV in June, the cable operator asked for Rs 1,200. After a lot of bargaining, he agreed to charge me less. He said that was only because I was taking two connections,” said Sudipto Mitra of Michael Nagar, off VIP Road.
Arunava Banerjee of the Association of Broadband and Cable TV Operators said all members had been advised to charge not more than Rs 100 as installation fee.
“As an association, we do not support cable operators who are charging more than Rs 100 for installation over and above Rs 800 for the set-top box,” he told Metro.
The police have asked subscribers to lodge a complaint with their nearest police station if cable operators charge extra for set-top boxes.
“Prompt action will be taken on all such complaints,” Jawed Shamim, joint commissioner of police (headquarters), said on Thursday.
Lalbazar had held a meeting of MSOs last month and asked them to ensure that cable operators didn’t fleece subscribers.
“We will soon convene another meeting of the MSOs and cable operators’ bodies to discuss the problem,” Shamim said.
The joint commissioner of police has already instructed the MSOs to run a ticker on their channels, announcing the price of set-top boxes. But none of the MSOs has done so yet, fearing a backlash from the cable operators.
Urban development minister Firhad Hakim’s statement in Delhi in April that Bengal would be unable to meet the June 30 deadline had caused a flutter,
The city has around 40 lakh cable homes, 30 lakh of which are still receiving analogue signals.
