The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has given final deadlines to Multi System Operators (MSOs) for submitting customer application form for the 38 cities under phase 2 of digitisation. It had given extension for this first in November and then in December.

Talking to reporters on Friday, TRAI principal adviser N. Parameswaran said all MSOs in 23 cities must ensure that after January 27, they should not only transmit TV signals to subscribers whose consumer application forms have been collected, but also switch off TV signals of subscribers whose details are not available.

In Madhya Pradesh, TRAI observed that compliance was low. Therefore, it has set the deadline of February 7 for Bhopal, Indore and Jabalpur. Meanwhile, taking into consideration local ground conditions and other legal issues in cities of Vishakapatnam (Andhra Pradesh) and Srinagar (Jammu & Kashmir), the deadline has been set for February 28.

In Patna, Ahmedabad, Ranchi, Bangalore, Kalyan-Dumbivli, Nagpur, Navi-Mumbai and Thane, the deadline is January 31.

Parmeswaran said MSOs would have to ensure that bills containing the break-up of charges for subscribed channels, set-top boxes (STBs) and taxes need to be delivered to the subscribers in the phase 2 cities by March 2014. The authority has been taking stock of the progress with MSOs. “According to latest reports, in 23 cities, around 90 per cent of consumer application forms have been collected and entry of complete consumer details in the Subscriber Management System has been completed,” he added.

Parmeswaram said as phase 3 and phase 4 of digitisation are expected to be completed by this year, some MSOs had already started streamlining the processes and trying to collect consumer application forms as the STBs were being seeded in these homes.

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