Telecom Regulatory Authority of India or TRAI has issued a new consultation paper, which is focused on addressing customer issues, related with pricing and selection of channels. If the suggestions highlighted in the consultation
paper are agreed, then the overall cable TV bill for consumers will reduce.
paper are agreed, then the overall cable TV bill for consumers will reduce.
TRAI Wants To Revise NCF For Consumers
Network Capacity Fee or NCF is the fees which every cable consumer has to pay to the DTH or Cable company.
Right now, the NCF is Rs 153 plus taxes, and even if the consumer selected one channel, full NCF needs to be paid. After paying NCF, the consumer is able to choose 100 free channels.
Now, as per suggestions received by TRAI, this NCF can be revised for all the consumers. No, the charges won’t be waived off, but can be reduced, based on the region.
For example, customers in Mumbai and Delhi can be asked to more NCF, compared to say customers from smaller cities like Jaunpur in UP or Kolhapur in Maharashtra.
If this happens, then overall cable TV expenditure of consumers from smaller towns can come down by an impressive margin.
Bouquet Tariff Is Misleading & Will Change
Another big issue which has been reported by consumers is the pricing of channel bouquets. It has been seen that some cable and DTH firms have provided deep discounts on some bouquet of channels, which indirectly convinces the users to opt them.
Such intentional and deeply discounted bouquet of channels have been done to promote or encourage a particular set of channels, and to make the choices one-directional.
The whole objective of à la carte based selection fails.
TRAI wants to change this, and there are suggestions mentioned in the consultation paper.
In the consultation paper, TRAI said, “it was expected of the broadcasters take a holistic view of the matter and give due consideration to the observations of while pricing their bouquets and channels.”
