Independent TV subscribers first faced service disruption back in June 2019 and the company is yet to resume the operations. Ever since the interruption happened, Independent TV has been providing a tentative deadline for restarting the services, but the company failed each and every time. And now, it's been more than 75 days since Independent TV last saw a television channel on their Set-Top Box. The company made its last announcement on August 15 saying that the services might resume any day after August 21, which of course, isn't the case. Independent TV customers are even complaining about the company's intent towards resuming the services again. Last month, Independent TV announced that it would resume operations as ITV 2.0 and a new business model.
Independent TV Faces Issues With Satellite Service Provider
On June 12, Antrix Corporation, which is the satellite signal provider to Independent TV disconnected services with immediate effect. The reason behind the disconnection is the non-clearance of dues from Independent TV. To recall, the DTH operator was supposed to pay Rs 15 crore to Antrix Corporation. Later on, the matter was taken to TDSAT and even Trai involved in the whole issue. TDSAT had directed Independent TV to clear the dues of Rs 15 crore with immediate effect so that Antrix Corporation can continue providing satellite signals required for resuming the operations.
Right now, we don't have information whether Independent TV cleared the dues to Antrix Corporation or not, but the DTH operator promised to resume services by August 15 as ITV 2.0. Eventually, the August 15 deadline was missed as well as heavy rains in Mumbai is not allowing the engineers of Independent TV to establish a link with Bengaluru up-link facility.
Independent TV Customers in Jeopardy Again
It has been more than 75 days since Independent TV customers faced disconnection for the first time. Independent TV is not a big company like Tata Sky or Airtel Digital TV, but it has over 80,000 subscribers and all of them are facing issues right now. Going by the complaints being posted on Twitter, it seems several Independent TV customers chose a long-term plan and they're now suffering the disconnection.
Also, Independent TV confirmed that it would provide a refund to the customers for the entire disconnection period, which seems alright, but the biggest question is whether they should change to another DTH operator or not. Right now, Independent TV did not provide any new deadline, and in the previous official announcement, the company said the services would resume any day after August 21. Well, we're one week past August 21, and still, there are no signs of service resumption, at least as of this writing. We will have to see when Independent TV comes with its next official update.
