The Competition Commission of India (CCI) may soon issue showcause notices to leading Direct-to-Home (DTH) television operators for allegedly abusing dominant market position and not allowing users to change the operator, while retaining the hardware cost at about Rs 4,000.
The subscribers were discouraged to change the operator as their set-top boxes (STBs) do not provide options of using another player’s card, even as the STBs can technically be made inter-operable.
“DTH operators have been found guilty of violating Sections 3 and 4 of the CCI Act. We will soon send them a notice, which is kind of a showcause, to which they would have to respond in 15 days. After that, the Commission will take a decision on what action to take against the operators,” a senior official of CCI said.
