The upholding of the broad principles of Net neutrality by a Department of Telecommunications committee may serve to allay some of the concerns millions had expressed over the stated plans of some Internet service providers to discriminate regarding access to websites. Even so, it is hard to justify the committee’s recommendation that VoIP calls on Internet communication platforms like WhatsApp, Skype or Viber within India should be charged like ordinary telephone calls.
The policy debate on Net neutrality, which had raged not so long ago, is bound to get even more intense with what appears, prima facie, to be discrimination between local and overseas Net telephony, and about the very concept of introducing strict regulation of digital services and allowing zero rating (where an ISP can choose to make certain websites or applications available for free) on a case-to-case basis.
The principle of regulating the telecommunications industry, which till the early 1990s was a BSNL monopoly, with the recommendation that Trai must approve all data tariff plans, may not exactly foster free market conditions. Yet, given the national security implications as well as the very large number of users of cell phones and such devices, it is only right that the government seek to retain a measure of control over competing telcos, including what they can charge their customers. Such controls should not, however, circumscribe the industry so that the objective of increasing Internet and broadband connectivity gets defeated. A flourishing telecom industry with greater competition can alone ensure that millions more Indians get on to the Internet and reap the benefits of the information superhighway.
As a form of communication, VoIP is the cheapest as a subscriber pays only for data use rather than for time or distance, and it works seamlessly across boundaries. The industry’s grouse that it takes away their revenue from phone calls and messaging services cannot be the reference point to this extreme regulation. Trai may have been successful in bringing down tariffs since they began very high about 20 years when mobile telephony just broke into the country. But, in the free market era, it is only right that the customer enjoys the same privileges in his own country as he does internationally. The other major debating point would be about the “zero rating”. A more unequivocal stand on this issue would have helped clear the air on Net neutrality. The argument is not about low connectivity, as Mark Zuckerberg makes out, but about the principle of a level playing field in a very open medium which promises everyone the same freedom. India should sustain that at any cost.
