MUMBAI: The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has put its foot down this time on the issue of non collection of customer application forms (CAFs). The decision taken by the regulator is: no more extensions for CAFs in the DAS areas of Mumbai and New Delhi.

As is known, the meeting between TRAI and leading MSOs was scheduled today. And Indiantelevision.com learns that the regulator has mandated the switch-off of all the non-complying customers.

"We will be complying with the law of the land" says Hathway Cable CEO Jagdish Kumar. "Starting tomorrow we plan to downgrade all those subscribers who haven‘t submitted the forms. We will only be providing them with free-to-air channels till 15 July and post that we will be disconnecting those who don‘t send in their forms even after that warning completely by switching off their service."

The cat and mouse game between the regulator and leading MSOs has finally come to an end. The final decision is: no slack from the local cable operators and customers would be entertained anymore. There is a grace period of five days that the LCOs have to make the final round of collections, post which the switch-offs would commence.

DEN Networks COO MG Azhar says: "We have collected 86 per cent CAFs in Delhi, but starting tomorrow we will be downgrading the non-complying customers to base packs."

The phased switch-offs begin from tomorrow. Apparently, digitisation‘s progress cannot be stalled any further.