Airtel DTH, Dish TV, Tata Sky Announce New Prices: TRAI Gives 31 January Deadline To Allow Consumers Time To Choose 

Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) had earlier mandated that all the direct-to-home (DTH) operators give the individual-pricing of all the channels. TRAI has now set the deadline as 31 January to make a transition to the new regulatory framework. Many DTH operators like Airtel, Dish TV have announced the prices already.

Livemint quoted an excerpt from the TRAI website which read, “Keeping in view consumer convenience and to provide sufficient time to the consumers for exercising the options, the Authority provided time up to 31st January 2019.”

The price for the base pack with 100 Standard Definition (SD) channels cannot exceed beyond Rs 130, excluding taxes, TRAI has announced.

Furthermore, it said, “The desired channels could be in a Ia carte, free to air channels or pay channels or bouquet of pay channels or any combination thereof. The choice completely rests with the consumers.”

Tata Sky and Airtel have priced their base pack at Rs 99 per month. For premium channels, the individual prices are above Rs 20. Some of the free channels include DD, 9XM, B4U Music etc.

“It has been noticed that several broadcasters are advertising their channels in the form of bouquets only. However customer may note that they have the option to choose channels a la carte also,” TRAI said.

A customer information channel will be live on number 999 on every cable operator and DTH service provider where consumers can get to know the details of the same.