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TRAI’s new rules for DTH and cable TV come into effect from today, here’s what you need to know

TRAI’s new rules for DTH and cable operators come into effect from today, February 1, 2019. Under the new rules, DTH and cable TV subscribers will be able to choose their own channels & packs and they will only need to pay for channels they want to see.

After the announcement of this new framework, DTH providers like Airtel, Dish TV, Tata Sky have put out the channel lists on their official websites. So, subscribers can either activate any of packs given by the providers or make a pack by selecting different channels by themselves. But what happens if you have not yet selected any packs or channels?

TRAI has said that the migration from the old framework will be smooth and there will be no blackouts after January 31, 2019. Subscribers whose monthly recharge date is coming will be asked to recharge only on their renewal date. The next recharge will be under TRAI’s new framework and it will be communicated through SMS.

For consumers who have already paid for their monthly subscriptions, DTH providers are still discussing the steps to be taken. But there will be no blackout for anyone.


Under the new rules, DTH and cable subscribers can individually choose and pay for channels they want to watch per month. You can check the channels on your provider’s official website. Apart from that, a dedicated channel number 999 is running a demo video on how to choose channels and packs.

After the new rules come into effect, the base monthly fee for 100 channels is Rs 130+ GST and it is around Rs 153 total. It will be common for all operators. Those who want to add more than 100 channels will need to pay Rs 20 more for 25 channels.

To make it easy for their subscribers to switch to the new framework, DTH operators have listed their own packs and also the individual prices for channels.

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Satyendra Pal Singh

Satyendra explores the latest happenings in the tech world and writes stories about those. He likes to play around with the latest gadgets and shares his views through articles. In his free time, you can find him watching movies/TV shows and/or reading books.