(8 November 2007 6:30 pm)

NEW DELHI: Broadcasters led by the Zee group have strongly protested the attempt by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) to exempt Mobile TV service providers from procuring a separate license.

They have accused Trai of letting the mobile TV sector operate without regulations.

In fact, a Zee group response to the consultation paper on Mobile TV says it has found this to be 'illegal', as mobile TV as a platform must share the same legal liabilities as IPTV, another platform, for which Trai has proposed separate license.

These points came out during an acrimonious "Open House" meeting of Trai on the consultation paper last week.

The Zee paper presented by Essel Group EVP Arvind Mohan also faults the government on not moving a finger to implement Trai's earlier recommendation on the opening up of the terrestrial broadcasting services to private operators.

"Had these recommendations been implemented, it would have created a level playing for broadcasters against the Unified Access Service Licensees (UASL), which have been receiving a very favourable treatment for allocation of resources such as spectrum," Zee has said.

By not acting on the recommendations of the Trai, the Government of India has deprived the broadcasters of having fully operational terrestrial networks now (as is the case for FM radio).

This needs to be made good now in the spectrum allocation policies which are being recommended by the Trai, Zee added.

Trai in its consultation paper on Mobile TV had suggested that UASL operators can provide TV services on their networks as this is permitted under "Triple Play".

However, Zee does not agree with this view. "Mobile TV is not content, but a platform. So they cannot do without the same provisions of law as the other platforms," Mohan told Indiantelevision.com.

According to Zee, all broadcasters have agreed that IPTV is a service which falls under the media sector, for which special regulations such as regulations on content, ownership, FDI guidelines, content codes etc are applicable, and it does not fall under the automatic carriage under the UASL licenses.

"We would like to point out that exactly the same position holds good for the mobile TV service as well, which is also a media broadcasting service, very similar to IPTV service on the broadband and mobile networks.

"Hence the mere fact that the UASL licensees (including CMTS licensees) may have the capability in their networks to carry TV content does not exempt them from following the licensing process of the media sector services," Zee has said.

The broadcaster has gone to the extent saying: "Hence any operators, who rightly or wrongly may be claiming the carriage and delivery of Mobile TV on their cellular networks or Wireless/ Wimax networks do not have any legal sanctity for the said process."

Broadcasters feel that Trai has refused to recognise that services such as IPTV and Mobile TV are based on 'live' as well as 'on demand' content, but has stuck to the stand that "any channel granted downlinking and uplinking permission" can be permitted for these services.

Mohan says that the need for licensing of content from the owners, its digital rights management (DRM) and permission to use the content as per rights granted by the rights holders have been ignored.

"We feel that if we wish the media sector to remain a regulated sector and not fall to piracy, these factors need to be incorporated at the time when the regulation for the sector is being initiated," Zee says in the paper.