NEW DELHI: A meeting of Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) officials with aggregators including multi system operators has been convened in the coming week to sort out problems being faced by MSOs and local cable operators relating to agreements and billing of digital access system (DAS) .

This decision was taken in a meeting of the Task Force of Phase II of DAS.convened by the information & broadcasting ministry, which said that the agreements must be signed within the next 15 days.

Failure to sign agreements by broadcasters and MSOs has in turn led to problems of LCOs billing consumers.

Several channel aggregators who are not licensed are also said to be creating problems with regard to signing agreements. On the other hand aggregators have complained to the Trai that MSOs are using strong arm tactics. (DAS Phase II: Indiacast-Hathway- GTPL slugfest on DAS deals)

Signing of agreements between the broadcasters and MSOs is a pre-requisite under the TRAI’s achieving various benchmarks for a smooth switch over to DAS under the Interconnection (Digital Addressable Cable TV Systems) Regulations 2012.

Some nodal officers also allege that there is no uniformity in the installation charges levied by MSOs or LCOs. However, ministry officials said this problem had to be addressed at the state government level.