TRAI proposes an internet without interference, upholding the basic principles of net neutrality
The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has upheld net neutrality - the idea of the free and open internet - in its recommendations released on Tuesday, 28 November.
This means that TRAI endorsed the notion of non-discrimination -- telecom operator and internet service providers (ISP) won't be allowed to speed up or slow down certain websites and apps.
"The Authority reiterates that the use of the internet should be facilitated in such a manner that it advances the free speech rights of citizens, by ensuring plurality and diversity of views, opinions, and ideas," TRAI said in its net neutrality recommendations.
The Oxford English dictionary defines net neutrality as "the principle that ISPs should enable access to all content and applications regardless of the source, and without favouring or blocking particular products or websites".
TRAI's recommendations will have to be accepted by the Department of Telecom (DoT). Thereafter, they will have to make changes in the license agreements and make net neutrality a part of them.
These licensing terms should provide explicit restrictions on any sort of discrimination in access based on the content the consumer chooses to access. Content includes "all content, applications, services and any other data, including its end-point information, which can be accessed or transmitted over the Internet".
While discriminator treatment includes "any form of discrimination, restriction or interference in the treatment of content, including practices like blocking, degrading, slowing down or granting preferential speeds or treatment to any content".
The ruling, however, doesn't come without exemptions. "Specialised service i.e services other than Internet Access Services which are optimised for specific content, protocols or user equipment, and where the optimisation is necessary in order to meet specific quality of service requirements shall be exempted from the principles of discriminatory treatment".
The ruling from TRAI comes mere days after Ajit Pai, chairman of the United States Federal Communications Commission (FCC), unveiled his latest plans of eliminating net neutrality - adopted in 2015 - in the United States.
Here's a video deconstructing just why net neutrality is a bad thing.
The FCC will vote on 14 December to revoke the rules on the concept of net neutrality.
India has had a rocky two-year period. In 2015, TRAI had come out with a consultation paper over the regulatory framework for over-the-top services (OTT). The most important of the questions it laid out was if telecom service providers should have the ability to price data differentially based just on the content it was providing.
For example, some operators managed to offer 'free services' through tie-ups with various content providers. After major protests from net neutrality activists, Facebook’s ‘Free Basics’ and Airtel Zero were banned by the regulator.
These protests came from those who believe in equal rights of all those who access the internet. For the telcos, it's a wholly different game. The telcos say that since they have spent crores of rupees on infrastructure, they should get an oversight and control of their traffic. That they should be able to manage this traffic. They do however say that they will not discriminate and throttle based on content.
TRAI will soon begin a separate consultation on regulating over-the-top (OTT) players like Whatsapp, Viber, Skype, Facebook Messenger, etc.
First published: 28 November 2017, 18:41 IST
