Currently as per TRAI .. service provider's are not supposed to lock their STBs ... and are property of the consumer once they are baught..... but have not seen amendments of this rule by service providers...
Im talking about DISH tv & T'SKY dth STBs ... they have a channel list of 1000s of channels & the STB firmware is locked ...STb doesnt allow to delet any channels & u have to scroll thru 100s of channels to find channels which are in your channel packages... this is very sad... there are other lots of features the STBs frovide bt as they are locked u cant access them..is anything bein done abt this ???
There was an article in one of the popular IT related magazines about two years back, which said that those much sought after (P) channels will be available when a separately bought card (from gray market) is inserted into the STP. May be it is also locked.