| Months after companies soft-launched or commercially started IPTV services, the government has made it a lawful broadcasting operation.
So far IPTV has been in a no-man´s land, and its regulation a grey area. But, after the
Cabinet meeting on Thursday, information and broadcasting minister P R Dasmunsi said government approval has been granted to the guidelines for provisioning of IPTV services. The Cabinet has also given its nod to amend policy guidelines for downlinking TV channels, so that broadcasters can provide content to IPTV service providers.
Till now, the down linking norms applied to only cable and satellite (direct-to-home) television platforms, while no guidelines were set for IPTV.
"The issuance of guidelines on IPTV will bring clarity on defining the parameters in which such service providers will work as also clarifying how these services are going to be regulated," according to Dasmunsi.
The implication of the Cabinet decision is that now IPTV service providers would be able to get TV content from registered broadcasters.
State-owned telecoms Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd and Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd commercially launched their IPTV services a few months ago.
But, they have been facing problems in accessing content from registered broadcasters, in the absence a policy framework.
Among the private players, Bharti and Reliance Communications have conducted their IPTV pilots across many cities, but they are yet to commercially launch the service.
The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) had issued its recommendations on IPTV in January, and it is believed that the policy guidelines would be in tune with the regulator´s suggestions.
Among other recommendations, Trai had said that the FDI ceiling for IPTV service providers should be 74%, in sync with the foreign investment cap of the telecoms.
The regulator is also in favor of rationalization of FDI ceiling across various media segments. At present, the foreign investment cap differs widely across media segments.
Clarity in IPTV regulatory framework is expected to attract significant investment in the sector.
Trai had earlier this year recommended that unlinking and down linking guidelines should be amended to enable broadcasters to provide signals to all distributors of TV channels including IPTV service providers.
The I&B ministry was in agreement with the Trai recommendations.
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