The Tribunal upheld the MSO's right to enforce digital signal transmission, asserting that it is not legally mandated to supply analogue transmission despite the phased rollout of digitization across regions.

ORDER

By Aftab Alam, Chairperson –

Whether it is open to a large Multisystem Operator (MSO), commanding regional dominance to refuse to give signals to the Local Cable Operators (LCOs) for re-transmission in analogue mode in areas that are yet to come under mandatory digital addressable system (DAS) regime? Or to put the same issue slightly differently, can the MSO insist that it would give signals for re-transmission only in encrypted digital addressable mode regardless of whether the area of operation of the LCO falls under the DAS regime or it is yet to come under the DAS regime? These two questions sum up the dispute between the two sides that needs consideration by the Tribunal.

The petitioner, Malwa Cable Operators Sangarsh Committee , as the name suggests is a loose association of LCOs who have been getting signals of TV channels for re-transmission from the respondent which is a MSO. The LCOs, represented by the petitioner Sangarsh Committee operate in Talwandi Sabo, Cot Shamir, Cot Fatah and other rural areas of Punjab. It is significant to note that all these LCOs operate in analogue mode. They have been receiving their signals from the respondent, which for all intent and purposes is the only MSO operating in Punjab, for the past several years. According to the petitioner, earlier the LCOs were getting 92 channels from the respondent for re-transmission in analogue mode on payment of a lump sum amount (fixed fee) as the monthly subscription fee. Around June, July, August 2014 the respondent started giving them set-top boxes for seeding at the subscribers’ places. At that time it only charged Rs.35/ - per month as the rental of the set-top box in addition to the fixed fee payable each month. By and by, however, the respondent demanded higher amounts for each set-top box. The petitioner states that its member LCOs operate in villages and their subscribers are poor rural people who simply cannot pay the charges as demanded by the respondent. Hence, the LCOs resisted the respondent’s demand for higher rates and the unilateral change in the arrangement between the two sides but they were subjected to all kinds of harassment such that they had no option but to seek the Tribunal’s protection in order to su rvive in the business.

According to the respondent, the real dispute between the parties is in regard to the mode of transmission. The respondent has taken the decision that it would transmit signals only in encrypted digital addressable mode and supply signals down in the distribution chain only for re-transmission in encrypted digital addressable mode. The LCOs whom the petitioner claims to represent, on the other hand, insist on continuing with transmission in analogue mode that gives them unlimited scope to under-report the subscribers and thus derive grossly undue profits at the expense of the respondent.

Here it needs to be clarified that the respective cases of the parties, as indicated above, crystalised only at a later stage, after the matter had proceeded before the Tribunal for some time. Initially the petitioner sought to agitate before the Tribunal a multitude of grievances without much coherence or even clarity. It was stated on its behalf that the respondent was causing unjustified and unauthorized disruptions in the supply of signals to the LCOs being represented by the petitioner; that it cut the cables laid out by the LCOs; that it set up dummy cable operators who poached upon the subscribers of these LCOs by offering channels at very low rates or even free; that, in collusion with the police and the local administration, the respondent got some of these LCOs implicated in false criminal cases; that, in short, the LCOs were being subjected to harassment by the respondent in many ways so as to either get driven out of business or to yield to the respondent’s demands and accept the rates and terms on which the respondent chose to give signals to them. Dealing with the grievances agitated before it, the Trib