Whether it is the people residing in the capital or farmers in a rural village, most Bhutanese are facing unreliable cable television connections. While people in remote pockets of the country complain about inadequate cable services, city dwellers see frequent signal interruptions and disruptions. These issues have left people dissatisfied and deprived of news and entertainment.
From missing important events like the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to remaining cut off from happenings around the world, residents in various districts have been grappling with unreliable cable television services.
“It has been around two years since the cables stopped working. We have requested the service providers time and again to fix the issue but they did not come. There have been rumours that we are not paying on time but it is not true,” says Budhiman Pradhan, a resident of Dunglagang Gewog in Tsirang.
“The cable connection was very bad, and when we called the service providers, they would not pick up. After sometime, they did not even come to collect the fees. We are not able to watch the news. It has been around a year since we were facing such problems. Recently, with the installation of a set-top box, we have been getting a better connection,” says Namgay Thinley, a resident of Toewang Gewog in Punakha.
In the capital, although every household has a cable connection, it is often the poor signal quality and frequent outages that people are frustrated with.
People say it is not fair when they have to pay Nu 300 every month for poor services.
Deki, a resident of Thimphu Thromde says, “The signal is poor; the pictures are not very clear and it does not work sometimes. They cut the money from our account before the month ends. It is hard to understand.”
The cable operators in the country are members of Netcom Bhutan Limited. Netcom Bhutan is a multi-service operator licensed by Bhutan InfoComm and Media Authority to provide digital cable TV signals to the local cable operators.
According to Netcom Bhutan, the local cable operators are unable to provide the services in rural areas primarily due to scattered settlements, which incur high costs.
Netcom Bhutan’s Chief Executive Officer, Jigme Dorji says, “Due to weather conditions especially in the south, we have issues in summer seasons. There are a lot of fibre breakages and our fibres are cut off. We have been prioritising that.”
He says cable rates in the country have remained at Nu 300 for decades. He says the amount collected from the customers is not enough to meet the expenses such as paying taxes, renewal charges, and pole sharing charges among others.
He also says Netcom Bhutan does not have all-dielectric self-supporting or ADSS optical fibre cables, which compromises service quality.
Jigme Dorji says, “We are trying to reach out to the government with regards to ADSS fibres. We have recently upgraded our servers such as Conditional Access System and Subscriber Management System servers. We have bought two servers from India just recently and we have completed the data migrations also.”
There are about 100 cable operators across the country.
According to the Information, Communication and Media Act of Bhutan 2018, Bhutan InfoComm and Media Authority, BICMA shall regulate ICT and Media Facilities and Services, which includes broadcasting distribution such as cable television.
As per the BICMA’s quarterly report on cable television service, from October to December, last year, the authority received 27 complaints, which mostly comprised of line issues.
However, BICMA refused to comment.
Tsheyang Tshogyal(Intern)
Edited by Sangay Chezom
