If you are a resident of Alipore, New Alipore, Behala, Chetla, Budge Budge, Garden Reach, Thakurpukur, Tollygunge, Haridevpur or Mahestala and are reluctant to bite the box bait, the New Year will begin with access denied to popular pay channels.
Not switching to the box —set-top or decoder — by January 1, 2007, for those in the path of Phase I of conditional access system (CAS) would mean having to make do with only free channels.
That could mean an unappetising menu of Doordarshan, some news channels, all regional channels apart from Zee Bangla and the religious channels.
With the central information and broadcasting (I&B) ministry and the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) determined to implement CAS from January 1, 2007, the will-it-or-will-it-not question looks set to be answered in the affirmative.
“Subscribers are still sceptical about CAS after the earlier fiasco, when the rollout was rolled back despite an announcement from the Centre. But the fact remains that this time it is happening, and from January 1,” asserts Mrinal Chatterjee of Kolkata Cable and Broadband Pariseva (KCBP).
The door-to-door campaign by the six multi-system operators (MSOs) — Manthan Broadband, Cablecom, Indian Cablenet, Siticable, Shrishti and KCBP— has failed to achieve the required penetration because of ignorance and a “mental block”, feel service providers.
“Our survey indicates that only 30 to 35 per cent households in the Phase I area want CAS,” says Mrinal Chatterjee of KCBP.
“This is either because viewers are not aware of the situation or are reluctant to pay for a new system. But we expect a rush once subscribers feel the pinch of being denied their favourite programmes on television,” he adds.
Udayan Bhaduri of Behala is still not convinced. “What happens if we invest in the set-top box but CAS is not implemented? Will I get my money back?” he asks.
This is making a section of MSOs jittery. “We have ordered a huge number of boxes, keeping in mind the number of subscribers we are going to cater to, but demand does not seem to be picking up at all. On the other hand, if we cannot meet the demand in time, we will lose subscribers to direct-to-home (DTH) players like Tata Sky and Dish TV,” admits an MSO representative, on condition of anonymity.
