Net Neutrality in India: Telecom Regulator Examining Net Packages of Telcos

As per various media reports, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (“TRAI”) is currently examining the internet packages offered by telecom operators offering access to Facebook and WhatsApp. The operators under the scanner are reported to be Airtel and Uninor, the Indian operator of Norway’s Telenor.

This seems to have come in furtherance to the recent debate on net neutrality, which is also backed by the United States of America President Barack Obama. Our previous post on the net neutrality debate can be accessed here. The issue under consideration is whether such data packages offered by telecom operators amount to a preferential access for such services. These services are referred to as over-the-top (“OTT”) services by the industry.

The TRAI would soon be seeking inputs from operators to explain how the packages have been worked out, in order to determine if the process involves blocking equal access to other content providers.

Presently, the ‘net neutrality’ concept is not specifically defined or regulated under the Indian telecom regulatory regime. However, generally net neutrality implies no blocking, no prioritisation and no throttling of any content on a network. The exponential growth in data services for mobiles and the global debate on net neutrality corresponding to the surge in OTT services seems to have prompted the TRAI to examine the data packages of the operators.

As per media reports, TRAI conclusions from the study of the data packages will have a bearing on the issues to be raised by it in a consultation paper to be floated soon. This is seen as firm backing for net neutrality, a concept also being discussed in the United States in the recent times.

US President Obama Calls for Strict Net Neutrality Rules

The lack of a clear policy ensuring net neutrality is worrying countries, even the developed ones. Recently, the United States of America President, Barack Obama has called upon the Federal Communications Commission (“FCC”) to issue and implement strict rules for net neutrality.

The principle of net neutrality is against the practise of the broadband companies blocking or intentionally slowing down the content or from allowing the content providers to pay for a fast lane to reach the consumers. It is critical in ensuring a free and open internet environment. In line with the working of telephone lines, where there is no distinction in charges for calls to another operator’s network, restaurant, school etc.; the net neutrality also envisages the situation of uniform charges for all traffic.

In the absence of net neutrality rules, the internet service providers (“ISPs”) would be at liberty to and also inclined towards shaping the internet traffic, giving preferential access to services and websites. The belief of some ISPs is that there should be charges for the services consuming more bandwidth, such as YouTube etc.

President Obama is of the view that the entities connecting a person to the world have special obligations not to exploit the monopoly they enjoy over the internet access. Media reports suggest that he is of the opinion that the net neutrality regulations are to ensure that neither the cable company nor the phone company acts as a gatekeeper, restricting what a person does online. The previous rules of the FCC were struck down in January this year by a Federal Appeals Court.

As in the United States, India too does not have the concept of net neutrality. There have been various consultations initiated by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (“TRAI”) in this regard; however the rules ensuring net neutrality have not been formulated till date. Although currently, the networks in India do not differentiate between the traffic flowing through their networks to provide different quality levels of service, but the practice of revenue sharing arrangements with large internet companies like Facebook, Yahoo, Google etc. is becoming common.

It is feared that for the Indian start-ups, banking on its internet infrastructure, net neutrality becomes vital to ensure an effective competitive market, by eliminating possibility of large companies to shell-out more money for preferential access.