NEW DELHI: The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) is unlikely to come out soon with its final recommendations on broadcast sector tariffs, interconnect and quality of service issues.

"Considering the responses from stakeholders to our draft guidelines are exhaustive and lengthy running into over 100 pages, we would also need time to study them properly before taking a final call," a senior TRAI official told indiantelevision.com.

The broadcast companies, in particular, have been strident in criticising the draft orders and subsequent consultation papers from TRAI. The Indian Broadcasting Foundation (IBF) has gone to the extent of questioning whether TRAI can issue such guidelines as they conflict with international copyrights law and the Indian Copyright Act, 1957.

In general, TRAI officials opine that if all the comments were to be taken into consideration, including IBF’s, then there would be no guidelines at all, draft or otherwise.

A section of the broadcast and cable industry were hoping that if  TRAI came out with its final recommendations on issues related to tariff and interconnect by first half of January 2017, the big picture on digital rollout of TV services would have become clearer.

Officially, the sunset date for all analog TV services in India is 31 December, 2016. However, a section of the MSO community contends that, apart from the last and Phase IV, there are still some 10 million homes in Phase III of digitisation left to be seeded with boxes.

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