Indian ministry accepts TRAI's IPTV recommendations

July 28, 2008 - India's Ministry of Information and Broadcasting has accepted recommendations from the Telecoms and Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) for IPTV, according to local reports, with a senior ministry official stating that the government has accepted the proposals with minor changes.

As part of the recommendations, the uplinking/downlinking norms will be amended to enable all broadcasters to provides signals to all distributors of TV channels, including IPTV operators, TRAI has also received a consensus from broadcasters to adopt non-discriminatory price regime on the composition of channel bouquets and the pricing of channels on an a-la-carte and bouquets basis for IPTV services.

The ministry official said that these measures should facilitate the conclusion of interconnection agreements between broadcasters and service providers to provide IPTV services on competitive prices once appropriate policy provisions are made by the government.