Consumer victory

The government’s decision to put off, unconditionally, the move to impose the Conditional Access System (CAS) on television viewers, is a victory for consumers — who chose to not watch their favourite channels for several months, rather than shell out several thousand rupees for an outdated set-top box that brought with it dubious benefits at inflated prices.

The government was wrong in trying to force a technology choice on the consumer, especially since it was clear that several companies were on the verge of putting together a direct-to-home (DTH) television hook-up, and while broadband Internet firms were developing their own packages.

While the DTH platforms were being priced at around the same level as the CAS ones, broadband offers could be cheaper — given that the cost of laying optic fibre in large cities has already been incurred.

It is telling that the government chose to ignore the consumer viewpoint till it had to face the Delhi electorate, when pressure from below forced a re-think and then the dilatory tactic of referring the matter to Trai.

Now, with votes once again important, the inevitable has happened and CAS has for all practical purposes been thrown into the dust bin.

Though there was no clinching proof, the allegation that CAS had been rammed down consumers’ throats in order to scuttle DTH always looked plausible, since few customers would go in for a DTH set once they’d got a CAS one.

Remember that imports of any equipment that used Ku band frequencies were banned in the late 1990s, with the obvious intention of slowing down Star TV’s plans to get into the DTH business (DTH works exclusively on the Ku frequency).

Now that Star has partnered the Tatas to get into DTH, while Zee plans to go ahead on its own and Reliance firms up its broadband plans, the consumer will have a choice of receiving satellite signals by satellite, broadband or cable.

That competition will prevent the rapacious pricing that some TV channels (or ‘bouquets’) have indulged in, ostensibly to rein in mafia-type cable operators who exploit their local monopolies while being immune to regulatory intervention.

Competition is always a better insurance against market failure than regulation, and the government should now focus on this end result.

That does not mean there is nothing for a regulator to do. For, while a DTH platform eliminates the need to go through the cable operator and the existing fixed-line phone company, the fact is that ‘last mile access’ continues to be a tightly controlled monopoly.

Trai will need to work on allowing competing firms access to the consumer’s home without necessarily duplicating last-mile infrastructure — especially since getting permission for digging lines is not an easy task.

If last mile access isn’t resolved for television viewing, many customers could once again end up becoming hostage to the whims of the local cable operator.