Recently some advertisements published in some leading newspapers promoted illegal DTH pay television connections from companies such as Dish TV of India. These advertisements appear usually in classified sections but now they are becoming more adventurous by publishing larger advertisements.
At a glance one would notice that these are cheaper and have more channel offerings than some of the local providers but then there is more to these connections that what catches the eye.
Lets take for example the channel offerings, in Sri Lankan operators the HBO, HBO Signature, Cinemax, Star Movies and AXN are all East Asia feeds which is of a higher programming quality and not to mention less advertisements and in the case of HBO, HBO Signature, Star Movies and Cinemax these are also commercial free channels. Whereas in these cheap illegal ones they are all Indian feeds which have lower quality programming and far greater advertisements and the above mentioned commercial free channels are not commercial free. In addition the programming is designed to suit the Indian audience which the Sri Lankan subscriber necessarily does not enjoy.
Another drawback is the lack of control over your connections. In the case of a local provider you have the freedom to call up their call centre and make any inquiries regarding your connection and even give them a piece of your mind if things are not going satisfactorily. But in the case of these Indian ones the connection is registered under the name of an Indian with an Indian address so to call them up, you have to always place an IDD call to India and if they find out that you are calling from outside Sri Lanka which is very easy with CLI then your connection will be disconnected and chances are that you will never be reconnected again and have to forget about the money that you invested in the connection.
Bill payment is also a hassle. With Sri Lankan operators you can pay without much of an hassle. But in the case of the Indian ones even though some illegal agents claim that you can make internet payments, there have been instances of connections being disconnected because the operator traced that the payment was made outside India. You have to remit the payment to India to a known person and get them to make the payment or usually the illegal agent in Sri Lanka will make the payment once you give them the money but more often or not the illegal agent either closes shop or stops dealing with this product leaving the subscribers in the lurch.
Recently AXN India was banned for a period of two months and all those who have Indian pay television connections were unable to view the channel (the Ban will be lifted on March 1st which is 15 days in advance of the actual lifting date). The point is that laws passed in India will affect the local consumer too when using Indian pay television connections. Those who had Sri Lankan pay television connections were not affected since we have AXN East Asia.
The best thing is to avoid these illegal imports from India even though they look juicy on the outside they are potential trouble. The only advice for those who have bought them is to return them and get a refund and invest in a local operator or carefully use the connection and get rid of it as soon as possible. For those who are planning to buy one it is a big “NO” since there are better local operators in the form of Dialog TV, LBN, Comet Cable and SLT will be launching IPTV soon.
We urge the pay television industry in Sri Lanka to take joint action and educate the public on the dangers of these illegal connections and also take action against those who are dealing in them. Competition between local operators will be healthy to the market but the illegal ones will only destroy the market.
Indian DTH companies should trace the people who sell these connections because they definitely have a connection with an Indian agent who is probably authorized to sell these connections legally inside India and take action against them and strip them of their distributorship without turning a blind eye. In the recent past though there has been a crack down on illegal connections within India and most probably they will start looking into the people who are smuggling these connections outside India.
The content providers should switch off the signal and take action against these DTH pay television companies whose connections are being sold outside India illegally since it mounts to intellectual property violation of their content.
