MUMBAI: The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) will not see any further delay in implementation of billing. And it is with this aim that the regulator has decided to meet both the last mile owners (LMOs) and the multi system operators (MSOs) at regular intervals. The first of these meetings was held on 3 June in Mumbai, the focus of which remained billing, revenue share and instilling good practices.
TRAI met some 300 cable operators, comprising members of Maharashtra Cable Operators Federation (MCOF) and a few independent MSOs from Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Pune in the morning, while met the national MSOs including: Hathway Cable & Datacom, DEN Networks, Siticable, IMCL and MSOs from Nagpur, Pune among others in the afternoon.
The message from the TRAI officials that comprised GS Kesarwani and SK Singhal was clear. “TRAI has asked the MSOs and LMOs to mutually come up with an agreement clearly defining the revenue share model, billing details etc which then needs to be signed by both the parties. In case the MSOs and LMOs cannot come up with this agreement mutually, TRAI will then draft an agreement, which will have to be followed by all,” informs a MSO who attended the meeting.
No deadline has been set as yet for the two parties to draft the agreement. “TRAI officials also questioned MSOs on the reasons for not complying with the existing regulations,” adds the MSO.
On the other hand, LMOs in their meeting with TRAI brought out issues relating to a few MSOs who indulged in taking the networks forcibly from LMOs, revenue share and billing. “We had a fruitful meeting with TRAI officials and now will wait for what they come up with next,” says MCOF president Arvind Prabhoo.
He informs, “Well! We had reached some kind of agreement on the issue of billing with both Hathway and IMCL four months back, but nothing happened after that. We discussed those issues with TRAI officials as well.”
In the meeting with LMOs, TRAI also discussed issues pertaining to DAS phase III and IV. “We had points about revenue share as well. TRAI has taken notes of the same,” he concludes.
