The recent news on Internet Neutrality and consequent White Paper released by TRAI presents an extremely disturbing developement for India's growth and the happiness of the people.  

 

The following are my key objections to the white paper:

1) The Nation does NOT owe Telecom Providers healthy profits:

Telecom companies have absolutely been unable to foresee the wave of the future and their place in it. Logic dictates that they must suffer for their lack of foresight. Allowing Telecom Providers to charge for OTT services is tantamount to extorting money from the populace for the mistakes and lack of business acumen of Telecom Providers. 

2) The mistaken assumption that catastrophe will ensue if Telecom Services cannot tap this revenue source:

The telecom sector has seen many shake ups and healthy competition for years. Proliferation of OTT services is the latest evolution of the same. The telecom providers only provide last mile connectivity. They have made NO innovations in bringing this data to people. The white paper itself notes that alternative sources of connectivity can easily be obtained via Wifi and other means. Charging of OTT services will only mean the proliferation of Wi FI services across the cities. 

The telecom companies do charge heavily for data services provided by them. The market will take the industry to a logical stable point without regulatory intervention. 

Additional observations:

The TRAI's mission of providing ubiquitious communication to all is laudable. But India is behind the curve and currently we are leapfrogging several stages of evolution in the telecom sector. OTT and ubiquitous internet access are the way of the future. Allowing telecom providers to charge for OTT services will significantly dampen this growth by making internet access much more expensive and less fecund in terms of innovation. 

In light of recent development the TRAI must seriously consider reducing taxes of Telecom Providers to ensure their viability or simply wait for the market to correct itself. 

Either way your mandate to ensure good communication is only preserved by bringing more internet connectivity to the people and not less. 

Regards

Kunal