This article was written by Prasad Madhira. In this article, Prasad gave many suggestions to DTH players and TRAI to improve service standards. As an user/consumer of Reliance big TV DTH services at home bearing Smart card no. 200511906888 (Another DTH service SUN Direct installed on second TV with Smart card no. 41055115301 which is better only in relative terms) and based on my unpleasant personal experiences for a long time and unilateral and unfair trade practices indulged by the operators like Reliance, I find serious deficiencies in the following areas which the service providers are not interested to address in first place, essentially due to lack of proper regulation by the Government and absence of established service standards and grievance addressing mechanisms. Additionally there are several issues and practices which are unfair to the consumers, which should be put to public debate by TRAI on their website (similar to the practices of other regulators like SEBI) prior to framing a regulation for government approval which is BIG NEED OF THE HOUR IN VIEW OF EXPLOSIVE UNREGULATED GROWTH IN THIS AREA putting consumers to a great hardship and unfair disadvantage. Advice (REQUEST) to DTH players and TRAI: 1. Absence of Accountability in service: This is evidenced by their total disregard to customer complaints made even by e-mails. Even Call centres are ineffective in resolving basic issues and indulge in buying just more time, refuse to provide tracking complaint number on several types of common grievances quoting their company policy and believe in verbal assurances which do not offer any kind of traceability & accountability to the consumers. The strategy is 'Indifference & inaction is the best … [Read more...]