Hathway, DEN and GTPL suggested that employing an application developed by a third party should not be made mandatory and be left at the discretion of the Multi-System Operator (MSOs) to either develop or improve upon their exiting App, at least for the National Level MSOs with a minimum subscriber base of 1 million.
They said that they are already complying with the rules and providing easy methods to consumers for selection channels/packs of their choice and are also ready to upgrade the existing App to make it more robust or to modify it to be in conformity to the guidelines laid down by the Authority in this regard.
After the New Tariff Order changes are made in IT systems, including but not limited to the configuration of huge number of Bouquets declared by the Broadcasters, putting in place a consumer corner etc. These comprehensive changes brought to fore some teething issues, which now stand resolved enabling all IT systems to run in a seamless manner facilitating subscribers to make their desired selection including deletion of channels.
They added that putting in place the third party app may also risk leakage of valuable subscriber information compromising our subscriber’s data which may prove to be detrimental to their businesses. In case of leakage of information, customers will lose trust in them.Â
They also said that using a third-party app will require the integration of systems of DPOs with that app. These integrations involve upgrading existing systems including SMS, CAS, and related other systems, all this will need a huge investment of both time and money.
They said that subscribers are just getting used to the entire ecosystem after NTO, introducing a third-party app may further add to the confusion and inconvenience faced by the subscribers.
