Soon, you may be able to use your old set-top box with new digital TV service

Moneycontrol News

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has started a pilot project to test interoperable set-top boxes for the digital TV broadcasting services that will allow subscribers to use the same set-top boxes for various service providers.

“There are 15 entities that have come for the pilot. Architecture is in place; the prototype design is ready. We will come out with test results within 8 to 10 weeks,” a person familiar with the development told Livemint.

What are interoperable set-top boxes or STBs? 

A set-top box refers to a setup, which has a small dish antenna along with low-noise block converter (LNBC) and a radio cable (RF) cable, used by the subscriber for reception of signals from operators.

In most of the cases, every operator has its own STB that receives the signal from only one provider. However, an interoperable STB allows the subscribers to use the same set-top box to avail services from various DTH providers.

If the pilot is successful, customers will no longer have to buy a new set-top box every time they change their cable service provider as the same set-top box can be used to receive signals from new operator.

Why interoperable STBs?

As per the report submitted by DTH Operators to TRAI on December 2015, out of the 85 million of STBs that have been either sold or provided to the subscriber in the market, only 55 million were in active mode.

This indicates that around 30 million STBs ran out of use because of non-interoperability of STBs. Since the inactive STBs cannot be used for reception of services of the other operator, the money invested into the STB go waste and it also results in e-waste.

Considering a total of USD 750 million capital remained unused as an initial capital expenditure was around USD 25 per STB, the government has been planning to reduce the e-waste across the country as well as make the subscribers independent of service providers.

Even though the exact data in respect of cable TV services are not available, it is anticipated that the numbers of inactive STBs are very large.