MTNL’s IPTV Service Gets The Go-Ahead From The Indian Government
By Nikhil Pahwa - Thu 07 Dec 2006 06:21 AM PST
Responding to a question on MTNL’s IPTV service, the Minister for Communications and IT, Dayanidhi Maran has said that IPTV is a Value Added Service over broadband, and MTNL is empowered to provide all types of access services [ source: The Economic Times]
There are two ways of looking at IPTV - one is that it is data transfer and hence should be governed by the Ministry of Communications and IT. The other is that since content is being broadcast - the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting should decide. MTNL has a Cable TV license, which doesn’t cover IPTV, but not one for the United Access Service License (UASL), which does. More details in this post. I have a feeling we haven’t heard the last of this yet...there are companies who have paid for that UAS license, and this means the Government can expand the mandate of licenses in order to benefit PSUs, at will. The other issue is of pricing - if IPTV is covered by the Cable TV license, then shouldn’t the notification of Rs.5 per pay channel apply to it as well?
Related:
- MTNL’s IPTV Runs Into Regulation Trouble?
