Information and Broadcasting (I&B) minister Prakash Javadekar has stated the government is planning to bring set-top box portability to the country, otherwise called "inter-operability". This will enable consumers to change their service providers by just replacing the chip-enabled card rather than having to buy set-top box every time they change the service provider.
“Like portability of mobile phones, the viewers should also have similar options with the set-top boxes. They should be able to put in any card of choice (of service provider) on the set-top box,” Mr. Javadekar said.
The minister also said that the ministry is working towards bringing complete benefits of digitisation to the consumers with a high quality service at affordable price points. The cap of 12 minutes of advertisement on Free-to-Air(FTA) channels might be removed soon too. This is because the move came out as “restrictive” to FTA when compared to their pay channel counterparts which make money through subscription.
