Not following the TRAI laws. Review on Tata Play

I recently took the TataSky connection. Well I feel there are lots of fish traps in the TataSky agreements. First of all as a customer I only own the STB (Set top box) in terms of payment and not in terms of Usage. It feels like you buy a computer and the manufacturer of the PC restricts you from using your CD/DVD drive from reading the CD/DVD you get in free from either your friends/for free.

The software within the PC installed by the Manufacturer restricts you to only use the CD/DVD provided by the manufacturer. This is the same way TataSky treats it's customer when it sell STB. I have paid for the STB in full, but still can't use it to it's full, as the software installed by TataSky has locked some of the features it doesn't want customer to use, For example, if a customer wants to view any of the FTA (Free to Air) channels, he has the right to view (even the channels which are not the part of TataSky Package.

The STB contains a feature in system settings through whcih one can add a FTA channel by inputing channel frequency, MBaud rate, polarisation, etc details. But thanks to TataSky software which has locked the Channel Tuning. So even if one knows the channel details he can't access them, even though you own the STB, u can't use it. The second irritating thing I found was As per TRAI rules STB should be interoperable, which means a customer should be able to switch from one DTH operator to another irrespective of STB. One should only be required to change the one DTH digital card to card provided by other DTH operator.

But again TataSky doesn't follow the TRAI rules, as even if one removes the card and inserts card provided by another DTH operator, the stb won't work. I have raised this issue with TataSky Customer Care, but every time I get to hear from them is they will talk to their seniors and get back to me, whcih has never happened till now. I am planning to drag TataSky to Consumer Court for cheating with it's customer and not following TRAI rules. I hope this helps other for not getting into the trap of TATASky. I still feel my old fashioned cable operator was good enough to provide me the channels I needed.