The expansion of the conditional access system beyond southern parts of Delhi, Mumbai and Kolkata, and subsequently to 55 more cities, may be further delayed with the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting seeking a detailed report from the cable industry on tackling piracy of pay channels after the system comes into effect.

This means the service, scheduled to be introduced this November, may see an on-ground implementation from only 2009.

The move comes within a month of the government giving approval in principle to the rollout of CAS according to the schedule proposed by the Multi-System Operators Alliance.

According to the alliance's plan, the I&B ministry was supposed to issue the CAS notification by April 30, paving the way for expansion of the service in the three metros by November 1.

The alliance, the apex body of cable distribution companies, was in March entrusted with preparing a CAS rollout plan.

The delay now will benefit the direct-to-home companies, which will in the meantime sell their service to existing cable subscribers in the three metros as well as the 55 cities that are scheduled to get CAS between 2008 and 2011.

The extension of CAS has been pending for over a year since the system was enforced in southern areas of the three metros on January 1, 2007, following a Delhi High Court order of March 2006.

• The new cable TV regime

CAS technology enables consumers to pay for only the channels they wish to watch, thereby lowering their cable bills. To access the service, consumers need a set-top box - a hardware device that decodes encrypted digital pay channels.

Currently, consumers of CAS in the three metros pay only Rs 5 per pay channels they subscribe to, in addition to Rs 75 for a bouquet of free-to-air channels.

"We are going to submit a detailed note on tackling piracy under CAS. Once the doubts are addressed, we expect to see its roll out shortly," said MSO Alliance Secretary A Mohan. According to the initial report by the alliance, curbing piracy should primarily be the responsibility of the MSOs.

MSOs are aggregators and distributors of cable television channels who supply and manage these channels through a network of local cable operators.

"...MSOs will ensure a monitoring practice for set-top boxes through fingerprinting mechanism for a particular channel at frequent intervals and also physical monitoring of the boxes with the help of broadcasters through their teams at field level...," said a letter by the alliance that was submitted to the I&B ministry in March along with the detailed timeline of the CAS roll-out.