Chittor Today

New Delhi : Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has said on Friday that it is working on creating a system of single set-top box for a user for direct to home services from different service providers. Through this, without changing set top box the customer will be able to change the service provider company without further expenditure in set-top box. The interoperability of the set-top box will empower consumers with more choice and reduce electronic waste too.

For this purpose, the regulatory authority will involve all the companies in this sector by the end of this year and will get practical solution for the same. TRAI held a workshop on this issue on Thursday. In this workshop, 60 stakeholders including  broadcasters, Direct to Home Operators, Multi Systems Operators (MSOs), Vendors, CAS suppliers, STB Producers and System Coordinators participated. The downloadable Central Access System to implement set-top box inter-operability was also discussed in the workshop.

The chairman of TRAI said in a statement that discussions with structure integrators, vendors, CAS providers and other stakeholders for technical matters will pass through the ‘Proof of Concept’ test. This test will help in presenting the acceptable solution keeping in mind the interests of stakeholders such as safety, privacy and pragmatism.

For this, the telecom sector regulator, has been working with sector participants for two years but it has noted that this issue has its own special challenges. TRAI Chairman RS Sharma said that for the telecom department, consumer interest is paramount and this type of interoperability will lead to the growth of sector through more competitiveness with economies of scale and freedom of choice.