Subject: Net Neutrality in India
From: Abhiram Haritas
Date: 28-Mar-15 3:32 PM
To: advqos@trai.gov.in

Dear sir / madam,
I am sending you this email to show you my point of view of the net neutrality situation in India, and to tell you why net neutrality must be preserved.

I will not beat around the bush and will address the biggest threat to net neutrality, the telecom giants in India. They feel threatened by the rise in number of free/cheap VoIP applications on all possible platforms including mobile phones, laptops and tablets. They are afraid that these applications will soon become the status quo for calls and texts of all kinds, resulting in a significant reduction in revenue for them, if they do not do anything about it. They are right - these applications are appealing enough to take over the system currently in place by these telecom companies. But the change that they seek to make is a cowardly and an extremely selfish one. The change they must make should bring about further innovation in the telecom field and not hinder the innovation that already took place. They need to think of ways to change their current system in order to make it even more appealing to the public, instead of hiding under the blanket of legality and using their monolithic powers to levy charges on people for using another service through their service.

The Government of India must not give a free pass to these companies and must be the driving force of innovation. If net neutrality is compromised, innovation and by extension, the growth of our country, will be hindered. 

Thanking you,
Abhiram Haritas