Why Is India Talking About Net Neutrality Again?

Talks from telcos for higher pricing of data for the most popular Internet services mean that the net neutrality debate is back

- VERNIKA AWAL

In September, telecom operators wrote to the Department of Telecommunications (DoT), urging it to reconsider the pricing of data packets to rightly account for the amount of data consumed by over-the-top (OTT) Internet-based services. Their rationale was based on OTT services consuming more data, thereby having a lopsided impact on the overall operating expenditures incurred by these telcos.

What the telcos did not expect to see here was a partial resumption of the entire net neutrality conversation in the country. After having closed it off following the landmark debate that involved Facebook (now Meta), net neutrality is a subject that has so far not seen turmoil. Until now, that is.

WHAT DO TELCOS WANT?

On July 7, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) released a consultation paper for industry responses, titled 'Regulatory Mechanism for Over-TheTop (OTT) Communication Services, and Selective Banning of OTT Services'. Multiple parties and entities raised responses to TRAI's consultation, which was published by the regulatory body on September 5.

The most scathing of the lot came from Bharti Airtel, Reliance Jio and Vodafone Idea-the three main telecom operators of India. Airtel's representation to TRAI, which sums up the crux of all three operators in one, said "Given the large requirements for meeting the vision of digital India, large traffic originators that account for a disproportionate amount of these (network infrastructure) investments must contribute a fair share. This should be through a direct contribution to TSPs (telecom service providers)."

The surcharge that telcos want companies to be charged, as per the submissions, could be "their share of contribution to the capital cost of broadband networks. This may be computed basis of traffic, revenue, number of consumers or some other parameter that should be decided soon."