SMS campaign by govt to sensitise consumers on cable charges

Seeking to ensure smooth rollout of digital cable television, government plans to launch an SMS campaign to sensitise subscribers on paying cable charges only for the channels of their choice.
The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting plans to launch the SMS campaign in Phase-I and Phase-II cities to impress upon cable TV subscribers to fill the Consumer Application Form (CAF).
"The consumers are required to fill the CAF in order to exercise their choice of channels and make the payment for the channels of their choice only," an official release said.
The Ministry has been monitoring the availability of Set Top boxes with the Multi System Operators (MSOs), it said.

Broadcasters were already running scrolls on TV channels to inform the public about the importance of filling CAF forms, it said, adding that MSOs were also giving messages on their local TV channels.
As per the data received from MSOs and DTH Operators, 22 Phase II cities have already achieved 100 per cent target of digitisation.

Another 14 cities have shown considerable progress and only in Coimbatore and Vishakhapatanam the achievement is less than 50 per cent, it said.
As part of the process, over 80 fresh provisional registrations were issued to MSOs for operation in one or more cities of Phase-II, with the condition that they would operationalise their digital head end before the cut-off date.

The Ministry has carried out technical inspection of all the concerned MSOs and has observed that some of the MSOs had not operationalised their set ups, the release said.
It said showcause notices were issued to 48 such defaulting MSOs and the provisional registration of 15 defaulting MSOs has already been cancelled.