Financial Times

Thousands of subscribers have been inconvenienced by the shutting down of CBNSat since June 6. There are more than 20,000 subscribers or 100,000 viewers.

The welfare of the subscribers of CBNSat have been disregarded by all relevant parties up to date. The authorities showed no concern about the consumer whatsoever at the time of shutting down of the services and afterwards.

CBNSat by no means is an underground operation. It is a BOI approved enterprise and the Head of TRC and then Media Minister Mangala Samaraweera endorsed the operations at the launch. It was advertised and featured on the state newspapers and even the state television channels were using CBNSat platform to transmit their programs to remote locations where they couldn’t reach by a terrestrial broadcast.

Most of the CBNSat subscribers are from remote areas where the signal quality of the local terrestrial TV channels is very poor. All of us have spent our hard earned money on CBNSat equipment to get information, entertainment and access quality educational programs for our children.

Most of the rural subscribers have bought this system under the easy payment scheme because they have no other way of accessing local television programs and quality international infotainment channels.

Through CBNSat these remote subscribers have been watching the local TV channels including the state channels Rupavahini, Channel EYE and ITN with the best level of picture/sound quality which they’ve been missing for all these years. With the sudden shut down of CBNSat they’ve been deprived of access to information.

We, the subscribers of CBNSat, have invested in a legitimate product endorsed by the government authorities, such as the BOI and TRC, and by shutting them down after almost a year of operations we believe that our rights as consumers have been grossly violated.

In a fast moving, rapidly changing world, it's vital for a nation to be provided with all means of obtaining information, in order to be competitive with the rest of the world. Shutting down of CBNSat sends a negative message to prospective investors who wish to come to Sri Lanka and invest in this type of high-tech business ventures. So dragging this issue further will not only put us, the subscribers, into utter inconvenience but as a country the image of Sri Lanka will further go down.

This is contrary to the government's initiative to develop Sri Lanka as the regional centre of the Asian IT dissemination networks.

The subscribers of CBNSat have waited patiently for more than two months for justice to us as law abiding citizens of the country. But day by day what we see is that the authorities are not caring about protecting our rights.

We learnt that the Chief Justice gave a ruling in the Supreme Court on August 3 to the authorities to finalise the licensing issues in a two-week time period without putting its subscribers into further inconvenience.

But according to media reports on August 16 and 17, the Media Ministry has again asked for one month to bring in new regulations at the Magistrate Court hearing on August 15. We are puzzled as to how CBNSat is shut and we the subscribers of the service are discriminated because of not having a licence which does not even exist as of date.

When this issue was brought to the notice of the Ministry of Mass Media and Information, the Ministry Secretary told our group that the new regulations are being drafted and they are not in a position to proceed without a court ruling. According to media reports the court ruling was given by the Chief Justice to remove the seals from CBNSat Equipment and to run tests and to finalize the licensing issues by August 23.

Further security issues and monitoring the system was also addressed and necessary steps that should have be taken regarding those issues and notified to the relevant government authorities. It seems to us that the officials of the Media Ministry are not acting positively on the ruling given by the Supreme Court.

As CBNSat Subscriber Unite, we have already expressed our concerns regarding the current situation of this issue to the Secretary of the Ministry of Mass Media and Information, Minister and the President asking for an immediate resolution.

As law abiding citizens of this country who have invested in a legitimate service, we urge the Ministry of Mass Media and Information to facilitate CBNSat to operate at least to the existing subscriber base till the new regulations and licensing scheme becomes active.

Tharanga Indrapala
Secretary, CBNSat Subscriber Unite
(A group representing discriminated and inconvenienced subscribers.)