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Business News/ Industry / Infotech/  Nasscom backs Net neutrality
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Nasscom backs Net neutrality

The software lobby calls for a level-playing field for the growth of a robust Internet and mobile start-up ecosystem in the country

Nasscom also said telecom operators should not have right to censor or block legal content, throttle lawful Internet traffic and determine how users should use Internet in the form of ‘normal net management or commercial practices’.Premium
Nasscom also said telecom operators should not have right to censor or block legal content, throttle lawful Internet traffic and determine how users should use Internet in the form of ‘normal net management or commercial practices’.

New Delhi: Software lobby Nasscom on Wednesday backed Net neutrality and called for a level-playing field for the growth of a robust Internet and mobile start-up ecosystem in the country.

Net neutrality is a principle that says Internet service providers (ISPs) should not discriminate online data by user, content, site, platform, application, type of attached equipment or mode of communication.

Responding to the consultation paper on regulatory framework for over-the-top (OTT) services released on 27 March by India’s telecom regulator Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai), Nasscom said users should have unfettered right to make informed choice and called for synergy between the growth of mobile start-ups and service providers.

Over-the-top services refers to services that deliver audio, video, and other media over the Internet without the involvement of a multiple-system operator in the control or distribution of the content.

“Today much of the revenue comes from voice. If you look at the cost of voice in terms of data intensity, there is a certain disproportion there. The growth of the data and the consumption of data based on the services provided by the OTT services is apparently creating a problem," said R. Chandrashekhar, president, Nasscom.

He said the solution lies in aligning revenue growth with data consumption so that more OTT services and innovative apps come up and consume more data.

A week after Trai released the paper that triggered public debate on Net neutrality, telecom operator Bharti Airtel Ltd launched Airtel Zero, an open marketing platform that allows customers to access mobile applications for free but charges the application providers.

About 10 days after the launch of Airtel Zero, online retailer Flipkart, which partnered with Airtel, walked away from the deal. This was followed by travel portal Cleartrip.com and media companies Times Group and NDTV pulling out of Internet.org, a partnership between Reliance Communications and Facebook.

Meanwhile, Trai had sought public comments on its consultation paper and has been flooded with more than 800,000 petitions against any attempt to throttle Net neutrality, according to the Press Trust of India report on 21 April.

“While a lot of opinions have been expressed in favour of Net neutrality, Nasscom and IT industry is very much in favour of Net neutrality, but as it has been pointed out by several people—devil lies in details," he said. “Everybody agrees that Net neutrality should be there but it is still not clear what is the precise definition of Net neutrality."

Nasscom also said telecom operators should not have right to censor or block legal content, throttle lawful Internet traffic and determine how users should use Internet in the form of “normal net management or commercial practices".

“We believe that the users’ unfettered right on what they want to access and what they want to choose is a fundamental right as the freedom of speech and is one such right that gets seriously compromised if regulations fail to proscribe or prohibit price or non-priced based discrimination in access of such services by telecom service providers," said Chandrashekhar. “The downstream impact of any such failure is unnecessary data demand curtailment."

Earlier this week, as concerns rose over maintaining equal access to Internet, the Competition Commission of India (CCI) said it is looking into possible abuse of dominance by telecom and Internet companies.

The issue also took a political turn on Wednesday when Congress leader Rahul Gandhi took up the issue during Zero Hour in the Lok Sabha. He accused the National Democratic Alliance government of trying to give away Internet space to some corporate groups.

“The government wants to distribute Internet among industrialists. Every youth should have access to Internet... This government wants to carve out the Internet and hand it over to some corporates," he said.

Information technology and communication minister Ravi Shankar Prasad, responding to Gandhi’s accusation, said the Bharatiya Janata Party government stood for digital India and the Internet was available to people in a “non-discriminatory" manner. “Government wants to assure Parliament... Prime Minister speaks of digital India so that 125 crore people have the Internet," Prasad said.

PTI contributed to the story.

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Published: 23 Apr 2015, 12:09 AM IST
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