Question 1: Is it too early to establish a regulatory framework for
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 justifications.
Answer: I do not see why OTT players need a regulatory framework.
Doing so would result in killing net neutrality. Also, if such a thing
is done, it will kill growth of mobile penetration. Stating that
internet penetration in India is ‘evolving’ is a joke because India
just has internet connectivity. The speeds provided by TSP’s and ISP’s
are too low and by going after apps, we will do the following things:
1.      Cause harm to start up companies who want to innovate and make
new apps, as making a framework means all TSP’s have a weapon to
target any company which makes apps
2.       The principle of net neutrality will be violated, and this
principle has been embraced by the entire world. Even the USA’s
watchdog FCC has approved a net neutrality policy, and I believe that
the only framework we need is one establishing net neutrality in
India.
3.      We have already witnessed a case where AirTel, which has a
streaming service known as wynk attacked others. Link. I trust neither
of these corporate entities or future governments, which will only
limit content as per their whims. Another violation by another TSP:
Link.
In this context, the only framework that I would recommend is to
introduce a framework know as: Protection Of Net Neutrality
Framerwork. A draft written by users from Reddit India and I has been
attached below.
Question 2: Should the 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: The simple answer to this question? NO! If we go into
specifics, we will find that getting OTT providers outside the country
under a licensing system has no logic because:
1.      Indian law does not apply outside India
2.      Indian revenues will be killed because Indian companies will
simply shift base abroad.. For example, major E-commerce companies
like Flipkart and SnapDeal are based outside India because of laws in
India that simply do not allow businesses to run properly in a
profitable way. Bringing another “licensing regime” (and to think of
it, will TSP’s issue licenses? So, is TRAI asking if an oligarchy is
okay or not?) will simply erode the already thin business
opportunities in India.
3.      By bringing in India, another set of policy will have to be
done by App developers who are often individuals with very less
financial backing. This is NOT in line with the Central govt. wishes
to promoting ease of doing business in India.
  TRAI has not even gone to the depths of explaining what licensing it
wants, and what does licensing even mean? Should we be the ones to
decide who can make an application in India or not? Does TRAI simply
want to pull the plug on app development and IT sector in India?
Putting it lightly, this is a dangerous development. My request to
TRAI is instead, to instead Net Neutrality. Internet is simply a
resource like electricity. A more detailed concept has been put in
below along with the framework for Net neutrality.
Question 3: Is the growth of OTT impacting the traditional revenue
stream of TSPs? If so, is the increase in data revenues of the TSPs
sufficient to compensate for this impact? Please comment with reasons.
Answer: The growth of OTT is impacting the traditional revenue stream
of TSP’s in a POSITIVE way. Let us assume for a second that OTT
services were hitting revenues of TSP’s hard. Then how can we find
such headlines:
1.      Bharti Airtel Q4 net profit surges by 89% to Rs 962 crore,
meets estimates
2.      Vodafone India service revenue up 11.7% in first half of FY15
3.      Idea Cellular posts 64 pct profit rise as subscriber numbers grow
These are the top 3 TSP’s in India. Similar things can be said about
other TSP’s doing business in India. The whole ‘perceived loss’
argument will then become same as the argument behind the 2G and coal
scams. There is no loss due to OTT’s. This whole theory is a mythn and
has already been debunked several times over by experts. However, for
the layman: growth of OTT = growth of data usage = growth in revenue.
However, as stated earlier, the way the TSPs have been marking up data
costs is irrational, irregular and that needs to be controlled
immediately, or regulated. The rise in no of subscribers + rise in
usage OTT apps + rise in data revenue is directly proportional to each
other. TSP’s are getting paid for Data, therefore to say that OTT is
taking away their revenues, while every bit has been paid for, to be
honest, is a lie. Why should a consumer pay for the same service twice
over?
Say we introduce pricing for OTT services. Then here is what will
happen: User will pay:
One for data pack, one for Whatsapp pack, one Skype pack, and then we
will start having a thousand packs and no apps will be used. People
will go on and on or will simply move over to WiFi which will then
give loss to TSP’s. This makes no business sense at all. But then
again this is simple business minding by me.
Question 4: Should the OTT players pay for use of the TSPs 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 product/service
differentiation? Please comment with justifications.
Answer: TRAI is being repetitive with this question, which I have
already answered. Just be be clear, here is my answer again: NO.
Telecom operators/ISPs are access services providers, and can control
either how much, what, and how fast you access and how much you pay to
access content and services on the Internet. It is important: for
access to knowledge, services and free speech, as well as freedom and
ease of doing business online, for this access to be neutral:
-          All sites must be equally accessible
-          The access speed at the telco/ISP level for each must be
the same(independent of telco selection)
-          The same data cost for access to each site (per KB/MB).
(This includes OTT apps)
-           No telecom-style licensing of Internet companies (see this and this)
-          Complete removal of gateways (Internet.org, Airtel OneTouch
Internet, Data VAS), censorship or selection;
-           No speeding-up of specific websites (that may or may not pay telcos)
-          No “zero rating” or making some sites free over others (and
that goes for YouTube, Wikipedia andTtwitter).
Question 5: Do you agree that imbalances exist in the regulatory
environment in the operation of OTT players? If so, what should be the
framework to address these issues? How can the prevailing laws and
regulations be applied to OTT players (who operate in the virtual
world) and compliance enforced? What could be the impact on the
economy? Please comment with justifications.
Answer: Yes there indeed exists an imbalance in the system since TSP’s
are repeatedly getting away with violation of basic principles of open
access to all services as mentioned above. And as I have said, OTT
players do not need more regulations, more regulations are just a
recipe for a disaster. What we need is a regulation to make sure TSP’s
are not exploiting customers via exorbitant data prices and uninformed
policy changes. Also, to put simply, there will be negative impact on
economy if such foolish and poorly thought policies are put into
place. You will simply drive out all “indie developers” and all start
ups from our country. I commend TRAI/TSP Legal teams on coming up with
such a great idea, really. Can TRAI explain why no action was taken in
the following instances?
1.      http://www.medianama.com/2014/10/223-zuckerberg-india-internet-org/
2.      http://www.medianama.com/2014/11/223-airtel-onetouch-internet/
3.      http://www.medianama.com/2014/03/223-uninor-facebook-whatsapp/
4.      http://www.medianama.com/2014/11/223-ndtv-com-blocked-on-mtnl-delhi/
5.      http://www.medianama.com/2010/04/223-mts-mblaze-net-neutrality-mobile-internet/
6.      http://www.medianama.com/2013/07/223-wikipedia-partners-aircel-to-offer-free-access/
7.      http://www.medianama.com/2013/07/223-twitter-vodafone-india/
It is simply because we need a regulatory policy to prevent larger
companies to encroach on smaller ones. This is the only policy India
needs right now when it comes to OTT apps.

Question 6: 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: The home ministry rules over all security concerns and
therefore it is illogical for TRAI to even come up with such a
question. When asked about such things, it pains me to remind TRAI
that we already have a policy in place which was drafted after 26/11
terror attack to prevent misuse of OTT voice communication by terror
groups. Indian intelligence agencies such as IB and RAW coordinate on
a regular basis with other organizations outside india to assess and
classify threats, and it has so far worked. Therefore, using “terror”
as a scare tactic to break net neutrality is CONDEMNABLE. Most OTT
apps have a legal policy on their use, and therefore, it is something
which is self managed. India, has, in instances, blocked internet in
areas where terror attacks were imminent or suspected. Therefore it is
best of TRAI to not use security as an excuse. Today, the use and
purchase of SIM cards is monitored, and thus we can verify the
identity of each person using internet. If he/she is a threat, such
things will automatically be flagged by the IB and information
coordination between all the stake holders is the key.
Question 7: 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: All app developers have a privacy policy as well as run a
support email regarding questions. In order to maintain safety,
privacy, and security, I recommend the following:
1.      Encryption: The Internet, like any network, can be monitored
by criminals and hackers at any number of points. This is one of the
reasons why email and many internet chat programs are not secure. Thus
you must take positive steps to protect yourself from malicious third
parties who monitor your communications. Encryption is the process of
converting information, using principles of mathematics, in such a way
that it is readable only by the intended recipient after they have
converted the information back. Over the centuries, different types of
encryption techniques have been developed. This process is called
encryption and decryption and forms part of the security discipline
called cryptography. As far back as 1900 BC the Egyptians utilized non
standard hieroglyphs to protect a message; whilst the Greeks in 490 BC
used strips of leather wrapped around a specific length and width of
staff. This process of disguising a message is called cryptography.
Julius Caesar possibly created and used the world’s first substitution
cipher. Through shifting each letter a fixed amount, for example 'a'
becoming 'e', 'b' becoming 'f' and so on, resulted in unintelligible
words and messages. The approach of applying rules to a message and
the result of a separate encoded message is called a cipher. The key
to unlocking the hidden message was knowing the offset of which to
shift the letters; forward to encode and backwards to decode. These
ciphers, whilst primitive now, were at the forefront of cryptography
at their time but as with any advancement greater technological
resources and knowledge can be used both to further a subject but also
to work against it. As past ciphers can now be defeated trivially,
modern ciphers must also continue to evolve. All OTT apps must encrypt
data transferred over the internet.
2.      Use of digital certificates: A digital certificate is an
electronic credential that can be used to establish the identity of a
user, wherever that user may be located. Just like a physical identity
document, such as a driving license, a digital certificate must have
certain properties in order to be used as a form of identification. In
particular, it must: Name the specific account being identified, Be
issued by an authority that can revoke the certificate at any time,
and Be difficult to counterfeit.OTT apps should use digital
certificates
3.      A privacy policy – All apps must have a privacy policy telling
us what they do with our data.
Question 8: 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: It is awesome to note that TRAI lists a majority of laws where
net neutrality is upheld, and asks the person answering questions to
draw from ETNO? How biased it is, indeed. Anyhow, India should not
drive any policy from the EU directly, since the market in EU and
india are completely different. India barely has 20% internet
penetration whereas the EU has is 100%. Therefore, saying it short,
India does not need a regulatory framework to boss over OTT providers.
A sample policy is attached with this answer sheet.
Question 9: What are your views on net-neutrality in the Indian
context? How should the various principles discussed in para 5.47 be
dealt with? Please comment with justifications.
Answer: Net neutrality is the need of the hour in India.Net Neutrality
is a founding principle of the Internet which guarantees that telecoms
operators remain mere transmitters of information and do not
discriminate between different users, their communications or content
accessed. It ensures that all users, whatever their resources, access
the same and whole network. But this principle is being undermined as
operators develop business models that restrict access by throttling
or blocking specific online content, services or applications
(protocols, websites, etc.), or their users' freedom to publish
information.
In the face of these attempts to undermine the decentralized
architecture of the Internet, and the freedom of communication and
innovation it represents, lawmakers must guarantee Net Neutrality.
Internet access providers must be sanctioned if they discriminate
Internet communications, be it according to the source, the recipient,
or the nature of the information being transmitted. It this does not
happen, we will create an Internet where only users able to pay for
privileged access enjoy the network's full capabilities. It should be
a must, given that the entire developed world: which includes USA, EU
and many many more countries has already passed laws confirming
internet as a resource similar to the internet and thus STOPPING any
discrimination done by companies over services derived from the
internet. A draft net neutrality framework made in tandem with users
of reddit India is attached below. I have personally written a net
neutrality draft which I believe TRAI / GoI should enact. ATTACHED
BELOW.
Question 10: 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: Of course, the principle of Net neutrality does not prevent an
operator to engage in traffic management practices consistent and
enforceable framework to assess whether traffic management practices
are reasonable – i.e. whether they actually seek to protect the
freedom of communication of end-users – and when they are not. In the
view of many stakeholders, there are two situations in which such
practices are legitimate:
Unforeseeable and temporary congestion: When a wireless or land-line
network goes through a period of unforeseen congestion (e.g. in the
case of equipment failure), network operators are entitled to
temporarily implement discriminatory traffic management practices in
order to ensure to fluidity of data streams. But every time, operators
must be able to prove to the regulatory authority that such congestion
of its network was not foreseeable and that it took necessary steps to
correct it. If the deployment of very high broadband networks takes
longer than expected and operators face a durable saturation of their
network, then the available bandwidth should be shared equally between
all the subscribers and all service providers, until operators invest
to upgrade their infrastructure.
Security threat on the network: In case of an sudden attack or all
other event undermining the proper operation of the network,
discriminatory practices are also legitimate. But they should be
circumscribed to temporary traffic hazards. Malicious actions aiming
at altering the global operation of the network, whether intentional
or accidental, should be considered as attacks. Traffic hazards needs
to be addressed through temporary measures, either manually – when
irregular traffic is detected – or automatically – when such traffic
hazards are already well-known. The duration of these measures should
not exceed that of the attack. They should be made transparent in
order to foster collaboration among the community of network operators
and allow for both a sound diagnosis of security threats and for the
adoption of the most adequate methods to deal with them.
Question 11: Should the TSPs 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: There is no transparency or fair pricing regime in India.
Therefore to impose trust on a corporate entity would be to put you
face inside a cannon about to fire. I don’t trust our TSP’s therefore
I oppose the traffic management techniques for OTT apps.
TRANSPARENCY WON'T FOSTER NEUTRALITY: transparency does not prevent
all the ISPs in a given market to adopt anti-network neutrality
practices, and there are many markets where no neutral Internet access
is available, particularly in the wireless market. In such cases,
competition provides no solution for consumers, who have the right to
access a neutral Internet. When for geographical or technical reasons,
only one offer is available in a given market (often subsidized),
regulators should have already imposed strong requirements of network
neutrality. In addition, the record of past policies in fighting
market fixing agreements between mobile operators is very weak, which
also suggests that the wait-and-see approach is bound to fail. Second,
even if neutral Internet access offers were to subsist in the absence
of regulation, the transactions costs of switching ISP in a
quadruple-play world where fixed Internet, TV, land-line and mobile
phone are concentrated in one service remain so high that many users
would feel discouraged to do so. Thirdly, while it has profound
political and economic implications, traffic management practices
remain a technical topic, and average users may not properly
understand the implications of their ISP restricting their Internet
access.
Question 12: How should a conducive and balanced environment be
created such that TSPs are able to invest in network infrastructure
and CAPs are able to innovate and grow? Who should bear the network
upgradation costs? Please comment with justifications
Answer: TSP’s must leave OTT apps alone. Rather than eating into their
revenues, they are aiding them in growth. The need of the hour is, to
make their business model viable. People switch over to different
forms of communication for the following reason:
-          The service is too costly
-          A better service is available
-          The support side is not good enough
OTT app providers have aced TSP’s in these 3 regions, and therefore
telecom providers are lagging behind. However, saying that TSP
The stupidest part of the Telco's contention is this
- We invest on the networks and the apps ride on this without paying anything.

This is as stupid as saying that the electricity company invest a lot
on the electricity networks and power generation and the fan and light
manufacturers get a free ride on it.The people who use fans and lights
pay the electricity companies for the electricity, just like the
people who use Whatsapp and Skype pay the Telcos for data.
Network neutrality spurs investment infrastructure. Net neutrality is
also essential to stimulate growth in network capacities, which is
driven by the development of services and applications. This is worth
recalling, at a time when some ISPs are seeking to monetize the
under-capacity of their infrastructure. In the United Kingdom, British
Telecom throttles all peer-to-peer traffic but sells premium
subscriptions allowing customers to avoid such discrimination by
paying a higher fee. This way, operators are in position to benefit
from the scarcity of their network's bandwidth, as consumers are
compelled to pay a higher price to communicate certain classes of data
in normal conditions. Such practices, which consist in maintaining and
managing an artificial scarcity, disincentivise investments in more
network capacity, even though the price of bandwidth is rapidly
decreasing. They cause a mid-term loss for the overall economy, whose
growth depends on the development of an open online infrastructure.
Question 13: 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 cannot be allowed to discriminate. This question has
already been asked and has just been reframed here. Under NO
reasonable conditions can 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. However, 2G/3G is not a real free market because of
spectrum allocations. There are 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.
Question 14: 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: The only justification for allowing differential pricing for
data access and OTT communication services is corporate greed. There
is NO JUSTIFICATION in discrimination. This is the same god damn
question over and over again in different forms. Non price based
discrimination would mean they block the services entirely. So no,
this should NOT be allowed in any way. No such practice is
justifiable/acceptable. Save for those implemented for security issues
or for unforeseen and temporary congestion, Net neutrality violations
have an immediate “impact” on fundamental rights, the digital economy
and broadband investment.
1.      Fundamental rights. Contrary to older traditional means of
communications such as radio or television, producing and circulating
information on the Internet does not require significant money. Thus,
the ability to produce information and knowledge on the Internet is
much more equally distributed in society, and results in positive
effects on democracy as a whole. Net neutrality ensures that the
ability to voice opinions on the Internet does not depend on your
financial capacities or social status. It gives people the freedom to
express themselves as they wish, and to access the information they
want without risking to be put at disadvantage by the few actors who
operate the network. If Net neutrality was abandoned or even durably
weakened in India, the control of the new, networked public sphere
would be handed out to private actors, who could use discriminatory
traffic management as a way of achieving control on the Internet
ecosystem. It could turn the Internet into yet another predominantly
commercial media.
2.      Digital economy and innovation. Net neutrality facilitates
innovation and competition, as economic actors take advantage of the
level-playing field in communication networks to launch new services.
The concept of “innovation without a permit”, where new entrants
compete fairly with the incumbent giants is at the root of the
development of the Internet as we know it. Entrepreneurs of the
Internet have become the linchpin of the emergent knowledge economy.
Beyond prominent examples of companies that became huge thanks to the
possibility to innovate and grow on a neutral Internet such as Google,
Skype, eBay, or Twitter, there are thousands of smaller companies and
services that represent an even bigger contribution to growth and
social welfare. Free/open source software or open contents services
such as Wikipedia or WordPress count among the most-used services in
the world, and only exist thanks to the neutral and decentralized
nature of the Internet. Many other essential parts of the Internet
took advantage of an open network, and became widely used all over the
world only a few months after being created, because it was relatively
cheap to produce and distribute their innovative services.
This is a stretch: To make sure that corporations do not discriminate,
random checks should be done by a Govt. entity like pinging the
service timely and setting up a portal if necessary to register
consumer complaints whenever they see such discrimination like say
blocking at night peak time. Many would be spam and useless, but
that’s that.
Question 15: 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 merely
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.
Question 16: What framework should be adopted to encourage
India-specific OTT apps? Please comment with justifications.
Answer: Already there are quite a few Indian OTT apps, however, to
help them, a “NET NEUTRALITY” framework is essential. There should be
no discrimination or favouritism in apps done by TSP’s because their
company owns the OTT app, that way a conducive competition enabled
environment can be created.
Define the principle of network neutrality. First, the specific
architectural principles of the Internet should be recognized in the
regulatory framework through the definition of the Internet as a
public electronic communications network abiding by the principle of
Net neutrality. This principle would rule out any discrimination based
on the source, destination or actual content of the data transmitted
over the network. ISPs would be compelled to respect this principle by
giving an equal treatment to all data flows and guaranteeing final
users the freedom to 1) send and receive the content, services and
applications of their choice; 2) use or run the application and
services of their choice; 3) connect to the network and run any
program of their choice, as long as they do not harm the network.
Question 17: If the 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: Please DO NOT license OTT players. There is no need for it as
of today. Please uphold the principle of net neutrality and leave OTT
players alone. It is an obvious breach of Net neutrality is the
blocking of certain protocols or applications by IAPs as a way to
undermine competition. In some instances, the use of these services is
subject to extra fees. The most oft-cited example of such
discriminatory practices is that of the voice-over-IP (VOIP)
application Skype. Although the blocking of VOIP on wireless networks
has been abandoned by a few IAPs in recent months, many of them still
engage in this kind of anti-competitive behaviors and will continue to
do so in the future for other innovative services in the absence of
Net neutrality regulation.
To preserve the attractiveness of Internet access, managed services
should also respect specific conditions. In particular, it seems that
any managed service should only give access to one specific type of
application or a limited package of services (whether these are HD
video, videoconferencing, e-Health, etc). Otherwise, one managed
service could absorb most of the applications that the Internet has to
offer and unfairly compete with this open and neutral communications
architecture. In the U.S, law scholar John Palfrey also proposed that
regulators should ban managed services that a) could be offered over
the public Internet; b) show clear characteristics of anticompetitive
motivation; c) draw down bandwidth otherwise allocated for Internet
access service; and d) if not handled as a Managed Service, might
otherwise result in discriminatory consumer harm” Link
Question 18: Is there a need to regulate subscription charges for OTT
communication services? Please comment with justifications.
Answer: NO. There is NO NEED to regulate any services offered over the
internet. Please do not murder the idea of a free and fair internet.
All Telcos are protected by the Govt, and OTT players are not.
Therefore to say that TSP’s are making losses and thus asking to
control OTT players is wrong.A category of anti-Net neutrality
practices not actually put in practice but increasingly contemplated
by some IAPs is the establishment of "tolls", whereby online service
providers would have to pay IAPs in order to benefit from a normal
quality of service on their networks. In early-2010, the CEO of
Telefonica declared that "Internet search engines use our Net without
paying anything at all, which is good for them but bad for us. It is
obvious that this situation must change, our strategy is to change
this". Link. Such language indicates that some IAPs are considering
developing new business models by monetizing online service provider's
access to their subscribers, which would profoundly undermine the
Internet ecosystem. Competition alone will not safeguard the
Internet's open architecture. Even though ex ante regulation has
allowed for sufficient levels of competition, many of the positive
externalities resulting for network neutrality would be lost. In the
view of such risks, it would be a great mistake on the part of Indian
institutions to adopt a "laissez-faire" policy letting ISPs free to
develop new business models based on traffic discrimination.
Question 19: What steps should be taken by the Government for
regulation of non-communication OTT players? Please comment with
justifications.
Answer: In order to promote business in OTT apps, the Govt must enact
legislation to establish net neutrality. Even TSP’s can offer their
own OTT apps and generate revenue through advertising. There is no
need for regulation of OTT players. Both the Internet and managed
services should be defined in the regulatory framework and steps taken
to ensure that the development of managed services will not occur at
the expense of the Internet. According to the French national
regulatory authority (Arcep), managed services are acceptable as long
as they "respect competition laws and sector- specific regulation, and
provided that the managed service does not degrade the quality of
Internet access". Such degradation would occur if, for instance, an
operator decided to allocate the vast majority of its bandwidth to
managed services, thereby depriving the Internet access from
sufficient network capacities.
To ensure that managed services will not undermine the attractiveness
of Internet access offers, Arcep proposes that the quality of service
requirements included in the Telecoms Package be construed in the
context of the neutral Internet to protect the latter against
degradation "Given the shared social interest in having an Internet
connectivity that operates in a satisfactory way for the maximum
number of users, it seems necessary to encourage the service to be of
satisfactory quality. An ISP's responsibility in this matter is
naturally central"
India Risks Lagging Behind if it Fails to Protect Net Neutrality:
“India is at risk of losing its competitive edge when it comes to new,
innovative developments”. It also notes that India is lagging behind
the United States and the EU in the development of innovative services
and applications. Yet, if the anti-Net Neutrality provisions currently
contained in the Telecoms package were passed, the situation could
dangerously aggravate.
Question 20: Are there any other issues that have a bearing on the
subject discussed?
Answer :
1.      Pricing of packs sold by TSP’s : the pricing of the plans sold
by TSP’s is arbitrary and not controlled, therefore it is quite clear
that rates across the board remain same and therefore it is hampering
the customers experience. Prices are unnecessarily inflated.
2.      No net neutrality law : A draft has been attached with this reply.
3.      TRAI has not interfered or made a statement on past violations
of policies by TSP’s. TRAI must respond to such things and enforce
policies more effectively.
4.      The digital india vision issued by the GoI and what TRAI is
proposing to do are complete opposites. There is no explanation on
this. (insert link to pic of net neutrality post of GoI on reddit
here)
5.      TRAI has no plan on upgrading internet speeds and quality in
India. According to this AKAMAI report(Page 25 onwards),  India has
the worst internet speeds. Instead of focusing on OTT players, TRAI
needs to drive policy in such a way so as to improve customer
experience in India because in the last 10 years we have not improved
in this sector, and we rank worse in Asia, even below the growth of
countries such as Philippines, Vietnam and China which are moving far
ahead us.
6.A key aspect related to this is to recognize that site or
domain-wide filtering is an extremely serious measure impacting
freedom of information and communication. Obviously, any attempt to
mandate such measures without a prior judiciary decision under a fair
and equitable trial is in contradiction to fundamental rights. Even
judicially ordered filtering raises serious issues as it unavoidably
risks to prevent access to other contents than the offending one. As
it is also an inefficient measure, it should be discouraged.
7.      Create sanctions to punish any illegal violation of network
neutrality. A third important component of a regulatory framework
aimed at protecting network neutrality is the creation of appropriate
sanctions. National regulatory authorities must be able to sanction
ISPs when they violate Net neutrality rules, for instance through
monetary fines (which should be persuasive enough). In the event of
very serious and/or deliberate interferences with the freedom of
communications of end-users, the judiciary authority should be
competent to sanction ISPs.


Thank you,