AIDCF urges Centre to reject TRAI's proposal to reduce DTH license fee

Time of India

18-07-2025

All India Digital Cable Federation (
AIDCF
) has written a letter to the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, reiterating its concerns around the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India's proposals to reduce the license fee paid by
DTH operators
.
In February 2025,
TRAI
reiterated its earlier proposal, made in the Recommendations on License Fee and Policy Matters of
DTH Services
, dated 21 August 2023, to reduce the
DTH license fee
from the current 8 per cent to 3 per cent, with a further plan to phase it out entirely by 2026-27.
In their letter this June to the Ministry, AIDCF argued that any reduction or waiver of license fee for DTH operators, despite their reliance on free spectrum, would deepen this inequity between the cable
TV operators
and DTH operators.
"This move would also further exacerbate the loss to the public exchequer," they argued in the letter to the government.
Currently, spectrum is allotted to DTH operators in Ku band on administrative basis - Free of cost. According to AIDCF, the DTH operators are paying license fee because spectrum was bundled with license fee on AGR in order to avoid initial capex burden on the sector.
In their letter, AIDCF also argued that DTH operators already enjoy structural and commercial advantages over
cable TV
operators.
"Unlike DTH operator's free spectrum, Cable TV operators incur substantial cost over ROW (Right of Way charges) which is up to Rs 3,000 per pole per year besides permission charges to be paid to local authorities for overhead and underground cables. The Cable TV operators also incur a CAPEX of Rs 8 lakh per km for underground cabling besides annual and regular maintenance of Overhead and Underground Cabling of those deployed cables," the letter read.
Additionally, for the acquisition of each customer, a Cable TV multi-system operator (MSO) and local cable operator (LCO) have to incur approximately Rs 5,000 per customer as capital expenditure, while DTH operators face minimal incremental capital expenditure spending for new customers, and in addition, no sunk infrastructure costs in case of churn, AIDCF noted.
"To ensure fairness and prevent further regulatory arbitrage in favour of DTH operators, the license fee on DTH services should not be reduced or eliminated. Instead, the regulatory framework should include mechanisms to recover the full cost of the spectrum assigned to DTH. Such measures would align with principles of equity, sustain government revenue, and maintain a level playing field across service providers," the AIDCF letter read.
Any reduction in the license fee for DTH operators will not only destabilise the market but also jeopardise the livelihoods of nearly 10 lakh people directly dependent on the cable TV industry, cable operators asserted, reiterating their demand to "reject" the TRAI recommendation to reduce or eliminate the DTH license fee.