New Delhi: Broadcast regulator Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) today (Feb 3, 2004) made it mandatory for all stakeholders - broadcasters, multi system operators and cable operators - to register their respective commercial agreements with it within a month.

In line with attempts to regulate this industry, TRAI said all broadcasters and their authorised distribution agencies as well as MSOs must register with it the interconnect agreements they may have signed.

"Where such agreement has been entered into earlier than these regulations, within 30 days of these regulations coming into effect and in all other cases within 30 days of the execution or modification of such agreements," the regulator said.

These orders follow broadcast and cable services being defined as telecom services as per a notification government issued last month.

"We want to understand what is the existing arrangement in the cable and broadcast industry...we have asked all the stakeholders including broadcaster, cable operators and MSOs to register with us the kind of commercial agreements they work under," TRAI officials said.

This could mean broadcasters will have to reveal the rates per subscriber they charge every MSO and cable operator; what MSOs charge the cable operator and what the local cable operator declares to the other two service providers in terms of number of subscribers.