the goan I network
PANAJI
Cable TV subscribers may face a three hour blackout soon, to make them aware of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI)’s hike in rates. Due to TRAI’s revised rates, television packs in Goa are set to get more expensive from February 1.
For subscribers of cable TV, this means that the current tariff of Rs 300 a month for around 300 to 500 channels, is set to go up to a whooping Rs 800 or more, informed Michael Carrasco, general secretary of the Goa Cable TV Networking and Service Providers Association.
Carrasco was addressing a press conference along with other cable operators from across the state, in a bid to create awareness amongst subscribers of cable TV about the same.
“Subscribers will have to pay Rs 130 for the 100 Doordarshan/ local news channels, and an additional Rs 38 for every subsequent channel package that they would like,” said Carrasco, explaining that channels would be categorised into packages for instance Sony channels, Star channels, sports channels, HD channels, and the like.
If a subscriber doesn’t wish to subscribe to a channel package but would like to subscribe to an individual channel, this would cost him/her Rs 19 per channel. On average, subscribers watched 38 channels, said Carrasco, so each subscriber would end up paying hundreds of rupees more than the present.
Though the revised rates were set to come into effect from December 29, TRAI has postponed the same to February 1 due to lack of awareness amongst subscribers. Already in Maharashtra, cable operators have protested the hike in rates with a cable blackout. However, the 200 odd cable operators have not yet decided on a date for the same due to the public not yet being aware of the situation.
Goa has approximately 1,50,000 cable connections, which include household connections and commercial connections for hotels. The most popular channels are the local news channels, sports channels and channels
that air Hindi serials.
