CCI may soon send notices to Tata Sky, Reliance Big, Dish TV

admin — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 11:19:57 +0000

NEW DELHI: Competition watchdog CCI may soon issue show-cause notices to leading DTH operators like Tata Sky, Reliance Big TV and ZEE’s Dish TV

for abusing their dominant market position and not allowing users to change the operator, while retaining the hardware cost at about Rs 4,000.

The subscribers get discouraged to change the operator as their Set Top Boxes (STBs) do not provide options of using another player’s card even as the STBs can technically be made inter-operable.

“DTH operators have been found guilty of violating Sections 3 and 4 of the CCI Act. We will soon send them a notice, which is kind of a show cause, to which they would have to respond in 15 days. After that the Commission will take decision on what action to take against the operators,” a senior official of the CCI said.

The move follows the Director General (Investigation) of the Competition Commission of India (CCI) having found DTH operators guilty of limiting consumer’s option to choose one network, while using another company’s set-top box by not making their STB’s technically inter-operable.

“Since a Conditional Access Module (CAM) — a card that facilitates feeds of one or more service provider to be read by STBs of another manufacturer — is absent, the STBs are not technically inter-operable,” the official said.

DTH operators did not respond to the queries sent by PTI.

The DG in his findings added that DTH operators are not following telecom regulator TRAI’s guidelines according to which subscribers should be able to rent, hire or buy STBs.

The CCI, sources said, would decide on the quantum of penalty, if needed, after receiving response from operators.

According to the Competition Commission Act, companies violating sections 3 and 4 could be penalised to the maximum of 10 per cent of the average turnover of the preceding three financial years.

Sections 3 and 4 pertain to anti-competitive agreements and abuse of dominance, respectively.

Last year, the Consumer Federation Online had filed a complaint against these DTH operators with the CCI, contending that the practice of not allowing interoperability of STBs is anti-competitive and against the interest of consumers.

INDIATAB » Tata Sky

CCI may soon send notices to Tata Sky, Reliance Big, Dish TV

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