Tata Sky falls inline with TRAI Tariff Rule; announces New Packs – withdrawing Long-Duration Plans

Mumbai: Tata Sky has finally decided to fall in line with TRAI’s new tariff rules and unveiled its channels and packs and offered support to almost all broadcaster’s plans and packs.

The move by Tata Sky seems to indicate that the DTH provider too recognizes the limited possibility of an big victory in the case filed by them in the Delhi High Court. The Case that was supposed to be taken up for hearing on 23rd January 2019 was postponed to next month due to the unavailability of the judge.

As Star India’s petition before the Supreme Court turned in favor of the regulator TRAI’s rights to impose structure, norms and caps on discounts in the interest of the consumer, their case in the Delhi High Court can now only result in some modifications of the scheme, rather than a significant overhaul.

Tata Sky subscribers can log on to mytatasky.com or packselection.tatasky.comto modify their existing plans and select the new bouquets and packs under the latest TRAI guidelines.

The move by the market leader removes the last hiccup in the roll-out of the new tariff regime by the TRAI.

According to the new rules, DTH and cable companies can no longer force customers to buy entire packs and bouquets, but must instead offer them the choice of buying channels one by one. In line with this rule Tata Sky has canceled all the long-duration packs it was offering to consumers and decided to move the users to monthly packs.This applies to all its users, including those who purchased long-duration packs this week.Many users had got special offers on long-term recharges, such as those that are valid for one year, and opted for the same, assuming that they would be protected against any price increase caused by the implementation of the new tariff scheme mandated by TRAI from1^st February.

While TRAI has given permission to all cable and DTH companies to continue their long-term and yearly packages, Tata Sky seems to have decided to cancel the yearly packages instead of trying to tailor them to suit the new TRAI rules as most of such packages would become more or less unworkable for Tata Sky or eat into its profits. Now, Subscribers will have to shift to a new channel pack confirming to the new TRAI rules and use up the refund money that Tata Sky has put in their accounts.