TRAI New Rule for Cable and DTH Subscriber: Explained!

In December last year, TRAI New Rule for Cable and DTH Subscribers as well as operators rolled out in India. On one hand where this new rule increases Cable or DTH monthly subscription charge, while on other hand it also brings Transparency.

In this new rule, TRAI ask a fixed network capacity fee of Rs. 153.40 for 100 SD Channels. In these 100 SD Channels, you can add Free to Air Channels or Paid Channels whatever you like. For FTA channels you won’t have to pay any money whereas for Paid ones you have to.

Note that Government of India have made mandatory to subscribe 25 Doordarshan channels which are basically free. Therefore, if you count, exactly there are 75 channels you are free to choose under Rs. 150.40 network capacity fee. If your Channels subscription count (Free or Paid or Combination of Both) crosses 100 SD Channels, you have to pay additional Rs. 20 per 25 channels.

In India, there are a total of 864 channels available. Out of these 864 channels 536 are Free to Air Channels whereas 328 are the paid ones.

Now, Out of these 536 FTA channels, 281 belongs to news category, however, 255 belongs to Non-News category.

Talking about 328 Pay Channels they are categorized as follow: