If Telecom Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad’s statement is any indication, the NDA government has taken a heartening position on net neutrality: the principle that internet service providers (ISPs) should not be allowed to discriminate between packets of data. Prasad noted, rightly, that the internet should be linked to “the common man” in a “non-discriminatory manner”. He was responding to criticism stirred up by a consultation paper issued by Trai. The paper is vaguely worded and seems tilted in favour of ISPs and telecom companies like Airtel and Vodafone, which, like their counterparts elsewhere, would prefer to junk the concept.
Given the intricate nature of modern telecommunications law, it is unsurprising that an issue so central to the networked economy has evaded mainstream consideration. But concerted social media activism after the US regulator moved to classify the internet as a utility in February, thus adopting net neutrality, and Airtel launched a platform called Airtel Zero that would exempt certain services from data charges on the network, has driven the conversation on the need for Indian policymakers to enshrine it in law. Nearly four lakh emails have been sent in three days, imploring Trai to safeguard net neutrality. Without legal protection, deep-pocketed companies like Google and Amazon would be able to pay ISPs for privileged “fast lanes” or cut deals allowing consumers to access their services for free. This would create a tiered internet where such companies would be able to protect their dominant positions from challenges by less flush start-ups, stifling innovation and harming the level playing field so integral to the emergence of one-time upstarts like Facebook.
