Illustration: Carlos Amarillo
Net neutrality has been debated in India for the past decade, which many would’ve thought had concluded in 2016 after TRAI decided to favour net neutrality. But since democratising the internet (courtesy Jio), the leading Indian telcos, alongwith their COAI consortium don’t really seem happy with their profits. While consumers and the government were “committed” to net neutrality, the telcos not so much.
Last month, COAI recommended that TRAI charge internet companies for network usage, renewing the debacle around net neutrality in the country. The primary logic of the ISPs was that with the roll-out of 5G and the eventual 6G technology, it is natural to share the costs. The issue can be seen in other places, like South Korea and several European nations.
There is no standard definition of Net Neutrality, but some attempts have been made. Net Neutrality is a principle that advocates that all traffic on the internet should be treated equally without any discrimination or favouritism. This principle helps small and medium businesses to compete with the industry giants.
Professor Tim Wu, who coined the term, stated that: “Network neutrality is best defined as a network design principle. The idea is that a maximally useful public information network aspires to treat all content, sites and platforms equally. This allows the network to carry every form of information and support every application.”
You may ask, how does Net Neutrality concern the common people? Or why should you care? Since it seems like a battle between the industry giants and governing bodies.
Net Neutrality keeps the internet democratised.
As soon as the telecom operators are allowed to violate this principle, the common people will suffer the most as the operators may ask for a premium to deliver their content. There can also be serious ramifications for the freedom of expression and dissent on the internet.
Also, the lack of Net Neutrality will mean that the have-nots cannot access the internet and will be debarred from the internet simply because they cannot afford to pay the premium.
Then again, Net Neutrality is what keeps your search results more vibrant. You can access a range of websites from all over the world. With Net Neutrality gone, Internet Service Providers (ISPs) can ask for extra charges to show international results to you.
Take the example of a country like India, which has more than 759 million active internet users — expected to reach 900 million in coming years. Just imagine the profits that are there once this principle is allowed to vanish.
History of Net Neutrality in India
- Early warnings (2006): The debate on Net Neutrality in India started in 2006 when the Telecomm Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) published a paper warning that Net Neutrality in India may change. TRAI opened the floor for a public discussion on the paper.
- Debate continues (2013): Public opinion favoured the principle, and the debate seemed to be over mostly; that is when a foreign company reignited the debate again in 2013. There were also reports that the Indian ISPs were throttling the speed of BitTorrent.
- Free Basics meets Save the Internet (2013): Various organisations were formed to counter Facebook’s 2013 Free Basics project. One such organisation is the SaveTheInternet Foundation, which rallied to the cause of Net Neutrality.
- Free Basics controversy (2013): In 2013, a controversy suddenly erupted over the Free Basics service by Facebook. the project was essentially to provide free access to certain websites. The initiative looked good on the surface; however, sceptics had certain doubts. Journalist and activist Nikhil Pahwa wrote, “What Zuckerberg means by Internet for all is essentially Facebook for all, alongwith a few non-profit services thrown in to give it the appearance of philanthropy.”
- Telcos want app tax (2014): Airtel announced that users of Skype, Viber, WhatsApp and other apps will have to pay extra. This means you pay for the internet and the apps you wish to use — digital double whammy.
- OTT (2015): TRAI published another consultation paper on over-the-top-services (OTT) and Net Neutrality. As you might have guessed, the public came out in support of Net Neutrality in huge numbers.
- DoT on OTT (2015): The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) constituted a Working Group on Net Neutrality with A.K. Bhargava as the chairman. The committee gave its report in favour of the principle. “The core principles of Net Neutrality must be adhered to,” said the committee report. The committee also recommended the government to encourage OTTs and “any impediments in expansion and growth of OTT application services should be removed”.
One interesting recommendation by the committee was to enshrine the core principles of Net Neutrality as a part of license conditions.
- Free of Free Basics (2016): The controversy lingered until 2016 when the telecom regulator finally banned Free Basics.
- Net Neutrality wins (2016): After three years of debate with millions of citizens emailing TRAI, the regulator finally decided to favour Net Neutrality and stated that no service provider could levy tariffs for data services based on content.
As of now, the Net Neutrality principle is upheld in India.
Why has the debate reignited?
All was set for good when TRAI ruled in favour of Net Neutrality in 2016.
- 2019: However, there were news details about some ISPs blocking websites violating Net Neutrality. These reports were few and far between.
- 2023: The real issue popped up in September 2023 when COAI (Cellular Operators Association of India) recommended TRAI, asking for a revenue share from the OTT platforms. The COAI representing the telecom operators said, “The payment of fair share fee by Large Traffic Generating OTTs to TSPs will eventually enhance customer satisfaction, as end-users will benefit via better network quality and improved services.”
- COAI attacks Save the Internet: COAI even wrote a letter to TRAI cautioning them against the misinformation on net neutrality and claiming that the campaign Save the Internet is malicious and based on false information.
- Activists rebuff COAI: On the other side of the debate were bodies such as the Broadband India Forum, SaveTheInternet and journalists and activists. SaveTheInternet rejected the contents of the COAI letter to TRAI.
- Entrepreneurs to GoI: Before this, a letter signed by over 125 startups was directed to the government. In this letter, the startup founders urged the government to maintain Net Neutrality. “We call for the internet to be maintained as an open platform on which network providers treat all content, application, and services equally, without discrimination,” said the letter.
- At Loggerheads: Currently, the telecom operators and civil society are at the loggerheads over Net Neutrality in India, with the telcos claiming that asking for a fair price will not violate Net neutrality. In contrast, civil society activists claim just the opposite.
As of now, the government has yet to come out with a statement on the issue and TRAI is also playing a wait-and-watch game.
To give you some parting context, while COAI’s core members are the leading telcos of the country — Airtel, Jio and Vodafone-Idea — its extensive list of associate members include, Act Fibernet, Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google, Huawei, Cisco, Nokia, Ericsson, Qualcomm, Tata Teleservices, Red Hat, Ciena, Indus Towers, Juniper Networks, Mavenir, Quadrant Televenture, Ribbon Communication, Sterlite Technologies, UTStarcom and ZTE.
COAI represents all of these companies; so, if you’re looking for someone to hold accountable for trying to take away a free internet and charge you more for the same services that you currently enjoy, there you go.
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