NEW DELHI: Multi-system operators and local cable operators were yesterday assured by senior officials of the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (MIB) and the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India  (TRAI) that contentious issues relating to interconnect agreements of Phase III of digitisation would be resolved.

In a meeting held under the chairmanship of MIB additional secretary Jayashree Mukherjee, the MSOs and LCOs presented problems being faced by them.

Primarily, the issues arise in the areas switching from analogue to digital addressable system and where the MSOs and LCOs have to sign fresh interconnect agreements with broadcasters.

In the last meeting of the DAS Task Force on 31 August 2016, it was stated that the broadcasters should request the MSOs with whom they have interconnect agreements but who have not applied for MSO registration whether they were interested to work as an MSO in DAS-notified area failing which they would not be able to act as an MSO after the cut-off date.

MIB was told that there are around 6,000 MSOs operating in the country, but only about 1,300 had applied for the MSO registration.

The Indian Broadcasting Foundation (IBF) representative was requested to ensure that similar action is taken by all members of the organisation and also that a list of member-boradcasters with their e-mail addresses is sent so that MIB  could also write to them.

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