Following are the answers you have asked for the questions

Answer 1:OTT services is a misleading term. Should a pipe manufacturer be charging the cola company for using the water that flows through the water pipeline network in the city? It is preposterous of telecos to think it as their right to have a profitable business. Profitability should be a function of their own innovation- it should not be handed over to them by changing the rules of the game.

Answer 2:

If you want to regulate the data as in the content of the calls for checking possible misuse by terrorists etc.,that regulation is justified but within some logical limits and the limits upheld by the constitution of India. If you want to make the existing services pricier for the consumer so that the existing but obsolete business model of certain telecom giants starts to work, then no. Definitely not. NEVER because it will hamper consumer choice, stifle growth of new kinds of products and services, and impede India’s economic progress. For example, if airline companies decide to offer online customer service through voice chat, an already heavily taxed and loss-making industry should not have to take another license.

Answer 3:

Profit of Vodafone in 2014 was £59.42 billion.

Airtel operating profit  (INR Cr.) is as follows:

Mar ’14-    16,298.80                                                               

Mar ’13-  13,470.70                

Mar ’12- 13,643.70            

Mar ’11- 13,340.30         

Mar ’10- 13,966.3  

(source: http://www.moneycontrol.com/financials/bhartiairtel/profit-loss/BA08)

A new-story on CEOs and their salaries highlights

“And it is not just the CEO whose salary has crossed the Rs 1 crore (Rs 10 million) barrier. In 2005-06, Bharti Airtel had no less than 13 employees drawing a crore or more.

In fact, with a salary cheque of Rs 3.21 crore (Rs 32 million) per annum, joint managing director Akhil Gupta was paid better than the other joint managing director and a promoter of the company, Rajan Bharti Mittal (Rs 2.48 crore)“

(Source: http://www.rediff.com/money/2007/apr/30bspec.htm)

These companies are not doing anybody a favor by offering internet services. Just because their current model is not working like before, they should now innovate, not modify the rules of the game and punish a whole country of a billion people who are now progressing in which internet has a huge role to play. (As an example, refer the following story on UN website on the benefits of free internet: http://www.un.org/africarenewal/magazine/july-2006/harnessing-internet-development)

Radio channels cannot tax television channels for reduction in revenue. Even if OTT players are impacting the traditional revenue streams of TSPs, the TSPs cannot tax OTT services. Market forces should allow TSPs to reach a profitable price-point. TSPs need to invest in the quality and expansion of their existing products. TSPs need to explore outside their traditional revenue streams. India’s economy needs to favour innovative companies’ not outdated incumbents with vested interests.

Licensed TSPs have immensely benefited over the years by having a near monopoly or limited competition in the circles they operate. It also did not take into consideration the inability of these players to anticipate disruption and provide cheaper and more secure VoIP services to their customers when they had the opportunity.

Answer 4

I, as a consumer, am already paying for the internet pack, only because I want to use the OTT service. Why should TSP charge the consumer as well as the OTT player??

What’s not to be forgotten is that the telcos do benefit from the apps that piggyback on them. More app usage means more data consumed and more money inflow.

Should the electric car manufacturers pay oil companies if electric cars become more attractive to consumers? The telecos have bought the spectrum which belongs to the people of India, sold by Indian people’s elected representatives in the government.

OTT players should NEVER pay TSPs for anything that can entail the violation of principles of Net Neutrality.

Answer 5:

No imbalance exists between the OTT players and the telecom companies. They are both in different businesses. OTT players offer applications while the telecom operator offer bandwidth for offering those services.

OTT players compete with each other, for eg,Viber competes with Whatsapp, but not with Vodafone.  The rules for Whatsapp and Viber should be the same, but Vodafone, Airtel, Uninor etc. are telecom companies which are working in an entirely different environment.

OTT players compliance issues should be with respect to privacy rights of the consumers, not the profitability “right” of the telecom players.

Should the toll charged by an expressway be higher for a Beetle than for a Santro? Should a power utility charge higher rates for the power used by a merchant banking office, where high-value deals are shaped, than for the power consumed by a sarkari office? Should a telecom service provider charge a stock broker taking an order from a client more than a call that exchanges gossip? All cars pay the same toll. Commercial power costs the same per unit whether used in a fancy restaurant or a barber shop. Calls are metered and charged per minute, whether they commiserate over the dear departed or exchange sweet nothings.

The Internet IS a levelled playing field for everybody. In today’s world, OTT players do not operate solely in the virtual world but, on the contrary, interact with “REAL” world products and services, and result in creation of innumerable jobs. In an ever more connected world, any law or regulation which breaks this ‘FLAT’ and ‘NEUTRAL’ nature of the Internet would harm economic growth.

By rejecting net neutrality, which will enable telcos to play the gatekeeper to a valuable resource, we will be shutting the door on the entrepreneurial aspirations of millions. That’s because the only way for them to compete with the big moneyed Internet players would be to match their spends to make the Internet work for them. The absence of net neutrality will definitely benefit the telcos while at the same time harming the market by unleashing monopolistic tendencies

Answer 6:

This question requires a completely separate debate in itself. First and foremost, governments and all companies should respect and uphold the consumer’s Right to Privacy. If we lose privacy, we lose freedom itself because we no longer feel free to express what we think. India cannot be allowed to become a complete surveillance state which taps every OTT service which a consumer accesses. Second, OTT services should be allowed to freely combine and bundle online communication services within applications, and shouldn’t be forced to keep data records. For example, an online vegetable ordering service should not be forced to save online communications between a buyer and seller.

Answer 7

A consumer ombudsmen to redress consumer issues related to OTT players can be formed. Again, it should not stifle the free internet, but promote it.

All OTT services should adopt  security standards in online communication. And they should keep consumers informed about the right privacy and security choices. In fact, the government should be proactive in making companies aware of such practices.

Answer 8

As already answered, NO regulatory framework is required which violates Net Neutrality.

Answer 9

Net neutrality should be strictly enforced with the bright line rules as mentioned above and as proposed by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). There is no need to fear surgeries getting affected because some users are hogging all the bandwidth.

Answer 10

No form of traffic management should ever be permitted. Internet is where people speak like they speak in real life. If you start discriminating, it would be like putting a cello-tape on some people’s mouth while providing a mic and loudspeaker to other people. It would be, like you mentioned, “DISCRIMINATION” and non-justifiable

Answer 11:

No traffic management should happen. The TSPs should not be allowed to adopt “traffic management techniques.” That should be defined as illegal and should lead to the cancellation of licenses of said TSPs.

Answer 12: 

TSPs are businesses. It’s not the consumer’s headache to worry about how to make any business profitable. Nobody asks an airline user: “who should bear new airplane purchase costs?” Let the TSPs worry about how to “invest in network infrastructure.”

Answer 13: 

CAPs will innovate and grow without the TRAI having to worry about them.

Regulation will make the TSPs lazy and stifle innovation. Handing them a plate of profit based on punishing the consumer (by double charging him as well as regulating what he sees and hears on the internet) will only lead to de-growth in the use of internet as it is today.

Taking the various non-price based discrimination of services options available to TSPs, here’s a more detailed response.

Restrictions undertaken in response to legal obligations are obviously okay. However, restricting specific types of traffic should not be allowed nor should differentiating between providers of types of content or applications.

Congestion management, network security and integrity can be legitimate reasons for TSPs to implement temporary restrictions but these should not be long term and TSPs should be legally bound to disclose these temporary measures to customers and the TRAI as well as detailing what steps they are planning to take to ensure there is no network congestion.

Providing a congestion-free network is the TSP’s responsibility — if it promises 10 GB data plans or ‘unlimited’ data plans, then it should come up with a network where it is able to standby that promise without resorting to choking, throttling and so on.

Zero-rating is acceptable as long as no competitors are complaining about collusion or predatory business practices. If Flipkart gets together with some TSP, it should not lead to problems when the TSP’s customers try to access Amazon or SnapDeal.

Application-agnostic congestion management, prioritization, and differentiated throttling as non-price based discrimination of services can all be allowed with adequate regulatory oversight and when TSPs resort to these, all this should be fully disclosed to consumers on their websites.

A technique like differentiated throttling should not mean the consumer suffering on an ongoing basis for a prolonged period of time. Hence, terms such as ‘unlimited’ should be clearly defined by the TSPs if they choose to offer them. The ‘Fair Usage Limits’ should be well defined and every TSP usually has them and that is only ‘fair.’

TSPs should never have the option to block anything. They should only be allowed to block sites after the appropriate courts issue an order to that effect.

In summary, the TSPs should only have access to these discrimination of services for limited periods of time. If these measures are made routine, they will be abused. So, the TRAI should spell out the narrow set of circumstances when such practices are acceptable.

If TSPs choose to abuse the limited power they have to go for discrimination of services, their licenses should be liable for cancellation.

Answer  14: 

No justification. The TSPs are charging the consumer for internet services already. They should then in no case charge the OTT communication service.

We do not allow for double taxation. Differential pricing would be like triple taxation of the consumer- charge for internet service, charge for OTT service (as OTT player will at least someway pass on the cost to consumer, and then the charge for the loss of freedom choice on the internet)

Answer 15: 

ALL data on the Internet is EQUAL. ALL bits are bits, NO need to segregate OTT players. TSPs need to focus on improving their existing products and quality of service.

Answer 16: 

Let the market decide. It’s not the regulator’s domain.

OTT apps are not critical defense hardware such as nuclear weapons or missiles. Hence, no need to worry about their ‘indigenization.

Answer 17: 

Not Applicable (N/A).

Answer 18: 

Do Not go down the road of the License Raj. You start with asking whether the OTT communication service players should be licensed and then ask if there is a need to regulate subscription charges for OTT communication services.

One set of regulations leading to another set and yet another

Answer 19: 

Government need not bother itself with the regulation of non-communication OTT players. “Let the buyer beware” should be the governing philosophy.

If people choose to opine to the world or share ideas or keep up with friends and do a million other things with millions of apps, it’s not the government’s business to tell people what to do with their lives. It’s inconceivable that the government can even think of ‘regulation of non-communication OTT players.’

What is the government proposing to do — “regulate” whether and how much people use Twitter or Facebook or Google or how much time they spend/waste playing FarmVille and Candy Crush or World of Warcraft?

Answer 20: 

Free internet is the best thing to happen to humanity since ages. It fuels innovation, promotes freedom and aids progress. It should be saved.

Uphold Net Neutrality. Uphold an Open Internet. Uphold the citizens’ Right to Freedom of Speech.