Uncertainty prevails on digitisation in city from July 1

The cable operators today said it was upto the government whether the deadline for digitisation of cable television will be pushed from July one despite not more than 20 per cent of the cable homes in the city had opted for set-top boxes.

"We are not sure whether the government will keep the propsoed July one date for digitisation of cable television. Pricing still remains a grey area and implementation level is low," Cable Operators Federation of India representative Swapan Chowdhury said here today.

He was speaking at a panel discussion at Bengal National Chamber of Commerce and Industry. He said the regulator, Trai was making a survey on prepartion toward digitisation in Mumbai and I believe similar surveys would be done in Kolkata also and then it is upto them to decide on date.

 

“Still consumers are not coming forward as much as was anticipated . Not more than 5-6 lakh homes had opted for the boxes out of an estimated 40 million homes,” Chowdhury said.

According to him the government has put the onus on broadcasters to check whether Multisystem Operators (MSOs) are beaming digital signals.