[sumathindra]

Originally Posted by ghodlur

Overall the entire exercise has been brain damaging with more bigger holes in the pocket. Can TRAI be taken to consumer court for this?

Well for sure it is taking a toll on the pocket and mine has almost reached 2k per month now. Thanks to the previous Platinum pack where family is not used to see any "not subscribed" screen and want to have them also in the current scheme of things.

I really do not understand the jokers in TRAI who designed this rotten system. I really do not understand who stands to gain here

[msdivy]

Originally Posted by ghodlur

Overall the entire exercise has been brain damaging with more bigger holes in the pocket.

If TRAI well and truly believes the new pricing scheme benefits the consumers, they must explain how. Can't believe they didn't factor in the multi-TV users and long-term pack users. Why did they blindly assume all are monthly subscribers with a single TV? Looks like they are out of touch with reality.

Its already 10th day of the new pricing regime since TRAI ruling and the DTH operators haven't trained their customer care to respond correctly to the customer queries.

I give benefit of doubt to DTH operators. I don't get the hurry in its implementation - just a months time? If this new scheme is planned to be in force for many years, why not give sufficient time to consumers, DTH operators to understand and to get their act together? I see updates to DTH/Cable operator backend, software, mobile apps, web site and also time to train their staff. A month is not sufficient. Finally who is suffering? Consumers and employees, who have to put in extra hours to comply with TRAI's absurd deadline.

[kingofmyworld]

This turns out to be yet another step towards sipping consumer money in name of saving their money. I was on an annual package with TATA Sky + I also had a multi TV pack active on my account. Earlier, I used to pay around 850 for 2 TVs and a ultimate package with every channel in it. I thought the new launch is going to save some money but turns out I'm paying 600 only for the multi TV! Thats insane! My regular package alone is costing me 1200! this is the most bizzare so called "savings" I've seen.

I think I'm going to dust my apple tv back to life and stream jio tv from my phone to my TV.

[DigitalOne]

Originally Posted by cs_rajesh

Again, I repeat, TRAI has simply paved way for every channel content provider to charge money and provider to add charge, (for example x amount for a bunch of y channels added).

That is how every industry works. The content provider or the product manufacturer sets the MRP. The local shopkeeper has to sell the product equal or less than the MRP. The DTH operator adding the NCF is like the milk delivery guy adding a rupee as delivery charges.

TRAI's decisions has made it possible now for every content provider to set any price and also hike channel price (anytime) without having to change the pricing technology or no interference from middlemen such as local cable providers (who used to offer a lot of channels at less or zero cost).

No, TRAI has set a upper ceiling of 19/- for the MRP of each channel. "Middle-men" setting the prices has been done away with. DTH operators were charging exorbitant amount without transparent pricing and their looting business is down the drain. That is why Tata Sky like DTH operators are viciously protesting against this change.

Local MSOs never used to pay the channels. That is why they could provide it cheap.

(somewhat like GST, once framework is set, govt can simply play with the tax rates and tune their income)

GST is not a new tax. Government used to have 31 different taxes and now it is combined into single framework called GST. Governments' always used to play with tax rates; Please read a budget speech before 2016 to see how they used to announce increase/decrease for each commodity.

And that also means to contain cost, end consumers have to constantly visit their channel selection and perform cost computation and if found high, revisit or go through the channel list and make up one's mind to remove one or few channels and so on.

Isn't this what you do for other purchases? If you go buy groceries, for example, and if the cost is high then you do drop some or buy it later.

One cannot watch all these many channels together at any instant. Out of those all channels, we happen to watch one or few very often (for example news) but end up paying high cost for certain channels which we would have selected for occasional viewing (for example sportz / cricket). Why charge for a month when I would watch only for an hour or so?

Monthly charging has been there for long. So why this new complaint?

Perhaps I can imagine a system like mobile billing, if the actual viewership can be measured with meter, for example, X minutes of a channel leading to X min x Rs Y / min . Maybe such models appear in the future and then perhaps I can imagine I would then pay for what I exactly watch.

Actually the TRAI guidelines now will make this kind of packets possible. Since the middle-man is taken out of the equation, it is between the Content provider and the consumer. When real competition kicks in now, channels will bring in smaller packets or reduce monthly charge itself.

[DigitalOne]

Originally Posted by msdivy

I give benefit of doubt to DTH operators.

This is the biggest myth and misconception the DTH operators have been peddling. See my post#1 that started this thread. TRAI has been proposing this for more than 6 months !! DTH operators have been putting court case after case against this since it goes against their non-transparent business practices.

The earlier deadline was Dec 29th which TRAI postponed to 31st Jan 2019. Only when DTH operators finally realised that TRAI is not backing out then they started poorly implementing the changes.

I had predicted the DTH operators' sinister games in earlier posts (see #3, #14).

[adi_gt]

I can provide a contrary view to what others are expressing. My family watches three kind of channels : News, Sports and Educational ones ( Discovery Nat Geo types). TRAI has allowed us the option to select and choose. I am very happy, my bill has come down by 50% now albeit with lesser content but we were not watching it anyways. I can understand that for TV buffs who love to surf and watch a lot of stuff it has become expensive. But I believe the useless channels who used to run like parasites on the back of stronger channels will die down and in long run prices of popular channel will come down as a counter measure. Just my view.

[alpha1]

Is there also a regulation limiting the discounting on the channel bouquet pack?

[pixantz]

Originally Posted by adi_gt

I can provide a contrary view to what others are expressing. My family watches three kind of channels : News, Sports and Educational ones ( Discovery Nat Geo types). TRAI has allowed us the option to select and choose. I am very happy, my bill has come down by 50% now albeit with lesser content but we were not watching it anyways. I can understand that for TV buffs who love to surf and watch a lot of stuff it has become expensive. But I believe the useless channels who used to run like parasites on the back of stronger channels will die down and in long run prices of popular channel will come down as a counter measure. Just my view.

+1 to that. Even my expenses have come down from 800 bucks to 560 bucks minus all the crap nobody watched plus we have each and every channel that everyone wants. We subscribe to 115 channels so still have 10 channels before we breach the 125 channel slab and invite another 20 rupee slab of 25 additional channels.

I think what's happening here is that people are so used to having that feel-good factor having every channel there just because it exists and then surfing just for the heck of it! 😃

Well that doesn't seem to be a very sensible idea with the new price configuration. It's like wanting to have your cake and eat it too. Not happening with the new prices. Personally I don't know which type of family manages to watch 200-400 channels! But can't comment on everyone's choices. I think anyone can be happy within 200 channels. But that's just me.

[msdivy]

Originally Posted by DigitalOne

This is the biggest myth and misconception the DTH operators have been peddling. See my post#1 that started this thread. TRAI has been proposing this for more than 6 months !!

Thanks for pointing out. I stand corrected. That explains the readiness of channels, DTH/cable operators' readiness with pricing before the deadline.

[BoneCollector]

This is ridiculous. Now TRAI has extended the deadline to 31st March and till then, people who have not selected their packs will stay on their old packs.

https://www.moneycontrol.com/news/in...1-3524201.html


What's wrong with TRAI? It is showing it's ineffectiveness in dealing with this fiasco.

[sgiitk]

I have the TataSky mega pack, (excl. south ). So I guess my tariff goes up, I hope not by much. Have been on this for over five years, this way I get any new channel for free without asking for it. Let us see, when the renewal comes late next month.

[murillo]

Originally Posted by ghodlur

I wanted to know from Tata sky when does the window for the reselection of channels be available and the customer care guy kept parrotting about some thing else. In all the discussion I came to know that the channel cost is being debited on daily basis from my recharge amount and I thought it was to be done on monthly basis. This means I can change the channel selection any given day and it will take 24 hrs to be effected. Tata sky stuffed a FTA promo pack consisting of 194 channels FTA and this contains channels which in my lifetime atleast I will not viewing, the FTA ones which I want to view are not in the pack. So tata sky refuses to allow me to change the channels in the FTA promo pack saying its mandatory as is the case with other DTH operators. I would like to know if that's the case.

Overall the entire exercise has been brain damaging with more bigger holes in the pocket. Can TRAI be taken to consumer court for this?

I am on Tata Sky and has made channel selections and they are effective from first week of Feb.

What I understand from Tata Sky is this:

You get FTA promo pack that contains 193 channels. This is mandatory, free, and cannot be modified. Its price is 0, NCF is 0 and tax is 0 and hence final price is 0. Please note the mandatory 26 DD channels are included here. You may find some channels from your preferred language here. This is a complementary pack and is different from Basic FTA pack mandated by TRAI.

Tata Sky has the mandatory Basic FTA pack consisting of 100 channels (different from above FTA promo pack). Here too you may find some channels in your preferred language. This Basic FTA pack is fully customizable and you can remove the included channels or add new channels of your choice from a la carte or bouquets. Good thing here is the 26 mandatory DD channels are moved to FTA promo pack, which results in all the 100 channels available for you for a total NCF of Rs. 153. The cost of Basic FTA is Rs. 153/- but this will change as per your customization, i.e., no. of channels, FTA vs. paid, SD vs. HD, etc.

In the earlier system, we were paying Rs. 240/- per month. In the new system, we are paying Rs. 288/- per month - however, while earlier we didn't have any HD channel, now we have added 13 HD channels (we went the a la carte way). I am sure, for 13 HD channels in the old system, our cost would be much more than Rs. 288/-.

[rohan_iitr]

What happens to subscribers (like me) who have taken Tata Sky's annual subscription ?

Will Tata Sky honour the annual subscription for the remaining period ?

Rohan

[blackwasp]

Originally Posted by rohan_iitr

Will Tata Sky honour the annual subscription for the remaining period ?

Yes. In my case, we have some more months remaining. The call center chaps said we can continue as it is till the subscription is valid, but if we change the plan, we will lose the remaining few months worth of money.

Plan is to take a call at the end of current subscription and decide if we want to continue.

[motorworks]

I have been using Tata sky for the last 8 years. I would say that Tata Sky is quite the benchmark in terms of quality delivered and the service response. However I have always found their plans to be on the expensive side when you compare Airtel or Hathway.

Now that we have transparent pricing regime, it sort of evens out the prices between DTH operators.

However I came across a rather weird pricing mechanism with this new ruling. I have always recharged for the whole year for all channels from a convenience perspective. And When this new ruling kicked in, it sort of coincided with the my annual plan expiring, so I figured I would recharge first for a month, thru manual selection of channels. I noticed that Tata sky levies some network fee of Rs.150 post your selection of channels. Anyway I went ahead with manual selection for the first month, but later figured that I missed out on some channels. When i tried to add them, Tata sky levies the network fee once again, although the cost of the channels being added was not even Rs.50!

I do not know if this is the same with other operators, but I found this very inconvenient and this sort of seems to compel the user to go back to Tata sky's own plans than manual selection.