Dear TRAI,

Here are the answer to the 20 question that you have asked. Hope you are satisfied with this answers and net neutrality to prevail in India.

Question 1: Is it too early to establish a regulatory framework for Internet/OTT services, since internet penetration is still evolving, access speeds are generally low and there is limited coverage of high-speed broadband in the country? Or, should some beginning be made now with a regulatory framework that could be adapted to changes in the future? Please comment with justification.

ANSWER: Since internet penetration is still very low, access speeds are still low and there is limited coverage of high-speed broadband in the country so any Regulatory framework will hamper the growth the interner penetration in India. There is no need to regulate OTT service/internet in India.

No start should be made on regulating the open nature of Internet in India and the only law needed is a strict Net neutrality law that does not discriminate between services on the internet.

Question 2: Should the Internet/OTT players offering communication services (voice, messaging and video call services through applications (resident either in the country or outside) be brought under the licensing regime? Please comment with justifications.

ANSWER: NO, Internet/OTT players providing communication service such as (voice, messaging and video call services through applications (resident either in the country or outside) should NOT be brought under licence as these have just started and are very small & any licenseing will hamper Internet VoiP calls grouth in India. Also if they are licences in future new start-ups looking to start such services, will not be able to do so. For the protection of the future generation start-ups Internet/OTT service communication through Application providers should NOT be licensed.

Question 3: Is the growth of Internet/OTT impacting the traditional revenue stream of Telecom operators/Telecom operators? If so, is the increase in data revenues of the Telecom Operators sufficient to compensate for this impact? Please comment with reasons.

ANSWER: NO, growth of Internet/OTT is NOT impacting the traditional revenue stream of Telecom operators as they are  already large number of people using traditional voice call. Also at present(Feb 2015) there is about 90crore GSM/CDMA telecom connection in india and only about 5crore to 10crore DATA user. So No matter how much there is increase in DATA usages, there is no loss of traditional revenue of telecom companies. Infact on the contrary increase in DATA usage lead to increase in New type of DATA Revenue for telecom companies. In future DATA revenue would lead to about 70% of telecom companies Total Revenue. This can only happen if DATA usage is encouraged in the country. In line with Digital India policy.

Question 4: Should the Internet/OTT players pay for use of the Telecom Operators network over and above data charges paid by consumers? If yes, what pricing options can be adopted? Could such options include prices based on bandwidth consumption? Can prices be used as a means of product/service differentiation? Please comment with justifications.

ANSWER: NO, Internet/OTT players should NOT be charged for use of the Telecom Operators network over and above data charges paid by consumers. These is against Net Nutrality. These will hamper growth of internet in the country. NEW small softwere engineers who make new software will be impacted. Then wont have enough money to pay for their salary how do you expect them to pay to telecom company for bandwith uses. Lot of YouTube creater are small creaters how can you expact them to pay for number of subscriber they have or how much view they get on their videos. Absolutely NOT, OTT service provider should Not be asked to pay telecom company.

Question5. Do you agree that imbalances exist in the regulatory environment in the operation of Internet/OTT players? If so, what should be the framework to address these issues? How can the prevailing laws and regulations be applied to Internet/OTT players (who operate in the virtual world) and compliance enforced? What could be the impact on the economy? Please comment with justifications.

Answer:Internet/OTT players should never be under the regulatory policies.As mentioned just now there shouldnt be any regulatory framework .

There are already laws that take care of any kind of misuse of messages wether its in OTT or via normal sms.So whats the need for any new regulations.

Any law or regulation vis-a-vis licensing of apps is reminiscent of the license Raj of yester years and the liberalizing of these in recent year shows the adverse effects it already had on our society and Nation.Today under the pressure of Telecom lobby TRAI wants to bring a different kind of license Raj to protect private interests.

The biggest impact would be on start ups in India that will be disincentivised by any differential speed or pricing that would now let the private telcos choose with their new found power or control over the internet to choose the winners and hence stifle innovation that would help kill the dream of “Digital India” and make our country move backwards in terms of new technological innovations as only indian consumers would miss the new technical innovations.

Question6.How should the security concerns be addressed with regard to OTT players providing communication services? What security conditions such as maintaining data records, logs etc. need to be mandated for such OTT players? And, how can compliance with these conditions be ensured if the applications of such OTT players reside outside the country? Please comment with justifications.

Answer:Regarding Security there are so many agencies in India that are involved.Did government give you the additional job of national Security.The Answer obviously is no.

The government from time to time makes operators block sites or forcibly get various internet services to take down pages that are inflammatory etc.So what role does TRAI have here other than giving a lame scare for justifying selling consumer interests off to telcos.

Security is not your domain.We have intelligence both external and internal to take care of it.You just do your job to protect consumer interests and not telco interests which your are anyway not doing.

Question7. How should the OTT players offering app services ensure security, safety and privacy of the consumer? How should they ensure protection of consumer interest? Please comment with justifications.

Answer:Security- Encryption can be used by OTTs to secure the data sent over the internet.

Ensuring that the privacy of data of a consumer would in itself ensure the safety of data sent over the network.Hence encryption and ensuring privacy takes care of the safety of the consumer too.

TRAI doesnt have to worry here also as the governemnt is in the process of bringing out a privacy bill.This in itself will take care of the privacy and hence the safety of the consumer.

Question8. In what manner can the proposals for a regulatory framework for OTTs in India draw from those of ETNO, referred to in para 4.23 or the best practices summarised in para 4.29? And, what practices should be proscribed by regulatory fiat? Please comment with justifications.

Answer:A totally biased approach which we feel was drafted by some vested interest in TRAI.What about many countries who have implemented strict net neutrality policies like Brazil,Netherlands,Chile.

Why does TRAI conveniently ignore these?Why the urgency and bias shown to just pick up instances that were just suggestions and also been countered in EU.

On top of that in a country where internet is evolving and many have to yet understand what the internet is or how much value it has in terms of knowledge,any discrimination in terms of licensing or interconnect charges is just going to give undue advantage to the bigger multinationals.TRAI would be guilty of depriving millions of Indian internet users from the knowledge that an uncontrolled and open internet could give to its users.

Question9. What are your views on net-neutrality in the Indian context? How should the various principles be dealt with? Please comment with justifications.

Answer:India badly needs to safeguard net neutrality.

Today india is in a situation where most government services,Bank transactions,Railways apps,everything is going online.By regulating some apps than some other apps the government would in itself be at the fore front of discrimination.

A lot of indian consumers are going to log into the internet in the coming years and these consumers are going to consume a lot of data and Internet would serve as a connection to the outer world for all these users in terms of knowledge,technological advances.

In the case of prospective enterpreneurs or start ups ,the intention itself would be stiffled if they have to deal with licensing for getting online or they have to pay off Tsps for preferential access.This allows TSPs and entrenched internet services to join forces and form a cartel that would kick out or worse stamp out any possibility of innovation or enterprenual skills in the country.

There is no Indian context or American concept or Chinese concept.Net neutrality is sarcosanct and should not be touched,If the Internet as it is today is working fine for everyone else than the TSPs as they were cozy and comfortable without competition and never innovated,its not the regulators job to bring in restrictive policies to facilitate loot by TSPs.

TRAI should first ask itself a set of 20 ques as to where its priorities lies,with the consumer or operators?

Question10.What forms of discrimination or traffic management practices are reasonable and consistent with a pragmatic approach? What should or can be permitted? Please comment with justifications.

Answer:The question itself speaks of discrimination.How can a regulator talk of discrimination in an open democracy?

No discrimination is pragmatic and none can be permitted.

As mentioned in the previous paras,no discrimination in terms of speed or price should be made.Already telcos have traffic management methods during high traffic on their network.Provision should be made to take note of them so that these are not used by telcos to unneccesarily target data traffic on network and take their consumers for a ride.

Question11.Should the Telecom Operators be mandated to publish various traffic management techniques used for different OTT applications? Is this a sufficient condition to ensure transparency and a fair regulatory regime?

Answer:No .Already there are many QOS requirements for Internet speeds,call drops,congestion on networks etc.As a customer of telecom networks including my previous operator BSNL which is a govt owned enterprise this doesnt serve any purpose.Such publications can never help a normal common indian layman.This would never ensure any transparency when TRAI itself will allow discrimination on the basis of differential speeds and pricing and pvt operators can work in tandem with corrupt govt officials to fudge data.If they can make a regulator like TRAI come up with such 99% biased paper supporting telcos none of what you do matters to the common public and their fate would now rest in the hands of selfish and greedyTSPs.

Question12. How should the conducive and balanced environment be created such that Telecom Operators are able to invest in network infrastructure and CAPs are able to innovate and grow? Who should bear the networkupgradationcosts? Please comment with justifications.

Answer:Leave OTT apps alone.The justification given by operators is a lame excuse as the same data that is being used up by these apps are driving the data revenues up which according to Airtel,MTS and Uninor now is a great deal of their revenues.They are trying to use TRAI to maximize it at the cost of the consumers.

Telcos have to any way upgrade their networks for better coverage.Its not that they are going to stop upgrading it they are not allowed to control the Internet.

The lame exceuses from TSPs are like highway authorities saying that we own the highways and hence every vehicle cannot just go over it by paying the same toll.Lets set the toll in such a way that an Audi pays more than a Nano.A person going to a particular place is charged higher than the other person.Does that happen??No right,then how can you even be asking this question?

Question13. Should TSPs be allowed to implement non-price based discrimination of services? If so, under what circumstances are such practices acceptable? What restrictions, if any, need to be placed so that such measures are not abused? What measures should be adopted to ensure transparency to consumers? Please comment with justifications.

Answer:No, TSPs cant be allowed to discriminate. This question is the same as ones above and is simply reframed. Under no reasonable conditions can be discrimination be allowed. In the absence of net neutrality, the Tata company can pay money legally to the telco to give a faster pipe for it's app. If the startup cannot afford to do this, the startup gets killed. Normally, this would be OK, because customers would switch to another ISP which provides same speed for all their apps. But 2G/3G is not a real free market because of spectrum allocations. There are very limited players. If something like non-customer friendly like this happened in a free market, then free market takes care of it. i.e. there are 4 shoe companies & all decide that they will only sell only shoes above 2500Rs. Then very soon a new company will come up and sell cheaper shoes. In the telco world, it's not really a free market. There are just 4-5 players anywhere and there is a barrier to a new player entering the market because of the spectrum allocation. Ergo, it's not a free market. They have been given protection from competition by the Govt. So government needs to regulate the telcos. The app space is pretty much a free market, there is no need to regulate them.

Question14. Is there a justification for allowing differential pricing for data access and OTT communication services? If so, what changes need to be brought about in the present tariff and regulatory framework for telecommunication services in the country? Please comment with justifications.

Answer:There is none other than saying that TRAI wants to fulfill the greed of the telcos at the cost of innocent common man.

Hence your second question regarding tariff and regulatory framework isnt relevant.

With any form of discrimination you target and destroy

1.Freedom of speech:Now instead of govt TSPs would decide who visits what site and that effectively can be used by govts too to push an operator to slow down a site or price it higher which is critical of the govt or anybody powerful.

2.Killing startups and the digital india dreams and promises look hollow.

Question15. Should OTT communication service players be treated as Bulk User of Telecom Services (BuTS)? How should the framework be structured to prevent any discrimination and protect stakeholder interest? Please comment with justification.

Answer:There is no need for treating OTT as anything. They are just services found on the internet. All that TSP’s need to concentrate on is to provide better data packs and suitable tariffs in order to earn money. For example, the data packs in India still start at 50 MB while the world has moved on. TSP’s need to innovate to survive. However, when a service provider breaks the neutrality of the network, new entrants become vulnerable to unfair competition, given that their access to the Internet infrastructure can be restricted. Obviously, powerful actors in the telecom industries have an interest in imposing their control over information and communication networks. They do so by, for instance, banning innovative VOIP applications from mobile telecommunications services.Anti-Net neutrality practices are thus fundamentally anti-competitive and harm consumers as well as economic growth. They discourage innovation and result in rent-seeking behaviors from established players. They put barriers to entry which prevent the emergence of the "next Skype" or "next Google". It follows that an open and equitable access to the communications infrastructure is the foundation of social and economic benefits and needs to be preserved.

There is no framework needed.I urge TRAI to have a hands of attitude on the internet.The internet is a much open space that would decide by competition as to which app grows and which doesnt.This is what TSPs dont like as Open internet doesnt allow them to be complacent and not innovate.If you look ,why did the VAS or apps from operators never took off in a big way.What about HIKE thats a competitor to Wats app.Didnt they use a lot of adds?but why,Its because TSPs dont want to innovate but use TRAI as a proxy to stifle competition and retain their comfortable level in a market where they dont have to spend much on innovation but just lobby for regulation.

Question 17: If the App based/OTT communication service players are to be licensed, should they be categorised as ASP or CSP? If so, what should be the framework? Please comment with justifications.

ANSWER: NO need to licence app based/OTT communication service players. IF it is done it will not be in line with the DIGITAL INDIA policy of Modi Govt.

Question 18: Is there a need to regulate subscription charges for App based/OTT communication services? Please comment with justifications.

ANSWER: NO, there is no need to for subscription charges for APP based/OTT communication service. OTT communication should be free and for all. There should NOT be separate charges for App based/OTT communication.

Question 19: What steps should be taken by the Government for regulation of non-communication App based/OTT players? Please comment with justifications.

ANSWER: NO action from govt is required in this regards. These app should also be considered as free and fare and there should not be any discrimination on such app data flowing through the internet.

Regards,
Vivek Mittal.
India.