By IANS,
New Delhi : India’s telecom watchdog Tuesday revised the Telecommunication (Broadcasting and Cable Services) Interconnection Regulation, 2004, making it mandatory for all broadcasters to have reference interconnect offers (RIOs) for their addressable systems.
The Telecommunication (Broadcasting and Cable Services) Interconnection (Fifth Amendment) Regulations, 2009, released by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), covers regulatory provisions on issues relating to inter-connection for addressable platforms and registration of inter-connection agreements.
The new regulations bar the distributor of television channels from seeking signals in terms of ‘must provide’ clause of the interconnect regulation from a broadcaster for those channels for which carriage fee is being demanded by him.
Also, the regulations facilitate introduction and roll-out of voluntary conditional access system (CAS) by making it mandatory for all broadcasters to have RIOs for all addressable systems.
In addition to this, minimum technical specifications for addressable systems have also been specified.