MANU/TRAI/0045/2020

Department/Board : Telecom Regulatory Authority of India

Press Release No. : 40/2020

Date : 25.06.2020

TRAI today launched a Channel Selector App which will facilitate subscribers to view their TV subscription and modify the same

TRAI, in March 2017, notified the 'New Regulatory Framework' for Broadcasting and Cable services. The new framework came into effect on 29th December 2018. TRAI's new regulations/orders for the television and broadcasting sector gave freedom to consumers to select television channels they want to watch.

Transparency and consumer protection are important mandate of TRAI. After issuing of New Tariff order for broadcasting services it was noticed that consumers were facing difficulty to opt for TV channels/bouquets of their choice on the web portal/Apps of their respective Distributed Platform Operators(DPOs). Therefore, the Authority decided to develop an App which will fetch data from DPOs through APIs developed by TRAI.

Accordingly, TRAI issued a draft amendment on 29th August 2019 for consultation with DPOs which mandates DPOs to share their APIs. After due consultation process, the Authority mandated DPOs through the regulation dated 9th October 2019 to share APIs with TRAI so that consumer can edit and modify their subscription using an App developed by TRAI.

TRAI has developed a TV Channel Selector App to provide reliable, robust and transparent systems to television subscribers. The App fetches the data of Subscriber from respective DPOs platform through APIs. The subscribers will be authenticated by OTP on their Registered Mobile Number(RMN). In case there is no registered mobile number of a subscriber with DPO, subscriber will get OTP on his/her TV screen. The App facilitates subscribers to:

1. Check their own subscription

2. View all Channels and Bouquets provided by their DTH/Cable Operator

3. Choose only the channels of interest and remove unwanted channels

4. Get optimized solution; Get best combination of user selected channels/bouquets in same price or in less price

5. Facility to add channels in the applicable NCF (Network Capacity Fee)

6. Allow users to........