"Net neutrality allows us to have the choice to visit and experience every site or app equally without any discrimination in terms of price, speed or availability from a telecom company. This freedom allows us to create, communicate and collaborate with people across the globe and for businesses to combine audio, video and text, and reimagine consumer experience," said Nikhil Pahwa of medianama.com, who is one of the people behind the campaign.
With India being in the throes of an intense debate on net neutrality, the issue was addressed by telecom minister Ravi Shankar Prasad on Monday, who assured that a committee of six TRAI officials formed in January to look into the matter, will send in a report to him by the second week of May.
“A committee headed by senior government officials of the ministry will give me a report on the whole gamut of net neutrality objective, its benefits, advantages and limitations including the regulatory and technical issues … by the second week of May after the widest consultation possible including online to help government come to an informed decision”, said Prasad.
On the other hand, the savetheinternet.in campaign, started by a group of digital rights champions, announced that more than 1,60,000 emails were sent out to the TRAI website, in what is turning out to be one of the most popular internet debate in the country’s history. Initiating the conversation on the issue, last month, TRAI had released a paper on its website inviting comments from users and companies, with deadlines ending on May 24. However, the 110-page document asked pro-neutrality supporters to answer a 20 questions form, which many see as pressure tactic from the government body.
Net neutrality is a principle that all websites and apps will be treated equally by internet service providers (ISPs), and that they do not fasten access to some of them in exchange for a cost. In 2010, when the Federal Communications Council in the US lost a case against ISP Comcast, it became a global conversation. The term was coined by American academic Tim Wu. In India, there was no law governing net neutrality, with ISPs widely violating it with various plans. Facebook’s Internet.org, Aircel’s Wikipedia Zero and its free access to Facebook and WhatsApp, Airtel’s free access to Google, and Reliance’s free twitter are examples of some violations. The TRAI’s invitation for suggestions is widely seen by campaigners as a way of remedying that.
Digital rights champions argue that this will divide the internet into two groups wherein the group that pays has a preferential edge over the other.
"Net neutrality allows us to have the choice to visit and experience every site or app equally without any discrimination in terms of price, speed or availability from a telecom company. This freedom allows us to create, communicate and collaborate with people across the globe and for businesses to combine audio, video and text, and reimagine consumer experience," said Nikhil Pahwa of medianama.com, who is one of the people behind the campaign.
Telecom operator Airtel, who announced the controversial Airtel Zero plan last week, said that the service did not aim to discriminate. "Airtel Zero provides universal access and is free for all our customers. Customers have the choice to decide whether they want to come there or not," said Srini Gopalan, director of consumer business at Bharti Airtel. "Airtel Zero is 'free' for all our consumers and open to all marketers. Since we announced it on April 6, over 150 start-ups – with majority being small start-ups – have contacted to enquire about the product. For the record, every one of them told us what a great platform we will be providing to them."
However, Pranav Kumar Suresh, CEO of Kerala-based Startup Village, a technology incubator which is promoted by the government and private bodies, said any entity that puts a price on access to the internet, is stalling its evolution. "The reason why we had an IT revolution in India is because of the global delivery model, and because we had the bandwidth and access. Curtailing that is problematic; it will dry up the small smart-ups," said Suresh.
What's Net Neutrality?
It is a principle that promises equal access to the internet irrespective of the ISP one is accessing. In 2010, when the Federal Communications Council in the US lost a case against ISP Comcast, it became a global conversation. The term was coined by American academic Tim Wu. In India, there was no law governing Net Neutrality, with ISPs widely violating it with various plans. Facebook's Internet.org, Aircel's Wikipedia Zero and its free access to Facebook and WhatsApp, Airtel's free access to Google, and Reliance's free Twitter. Trai's invitation for suggestions is widely seen by campaigners as a way of remedying that.
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