we have pioneered Online Television & have been shortlisted as one of the top 5 emerging media companies in the world at Festival Of Media, Singapore.

we believe our views are central to the debate. please find below a simple line of argument in favour of OTT & all other internet based services as against the views of the telecom operators.

Why we must have #NetNeutrality

At the outset let us understand that #NetNeutrality is one aspect of a Free Internet. It is a desired quality borne out of the fact that The Internet is an Utility. Even a public utility.

Telcos & other Internet service providers are licensees only on a "build, operate, maintain" basis - like a toll road operator.

A toll road operator is able to charge on the basis of the size of a vehicle (in this case bandwidth consumed) but cannot provide transport operators dedicated, fast lanes at the cost of smaller, private non commercial vehicles.

Similarly, electricity providers can charge domestic or commercial rates, 3 phase or single phase meters but can only charge for total  watts consumed - there is no way they can charge a differential rate for 100 watt and 500 watt bulbs, or usage on TV or geysers. They definitely cannot demand share of revenues from electrical or electronic appliance makers. The appliances lead to consumption of electricity and without electricity no such appliance can run.  But the two businesses cannot be clubbed together. And definitely the appliance makers are not subjugated to electricity producers or suppliers.

A similar relationship exists between Telcos & various websites on the internet. Telcos like electricity suppliers can only charge for what they supply & can have no say or revenue in what the users of that supply do with it. Moreover, like electricity suppliers they cannot provide a better quality of service to different users based on differential pricing. At best they can charge a different rate for domestic and COMMERICAL use. But again these rates have to be same for all domestic & all COMMERICAL users.

There is no other analogy possible for The Internet & Telcos except with Electricity & Roads.

Either of those analogies demand that Telcos must operate as utilities with no differential say in the revenue & quality of service provided by their users.

Can you imagine an electricity supplier deciding on the picture quality of a Sony or Samsung TV based on which one of them has tied up with it?

If indeed there had been any such arrangement - there would have been no innovation in electrical appliances as no new appliance maker would have been able to afford the payments required to deliver quality of service.

Existing players must not be able to play gatekeepers to new innovations in distribution, creation and invention of content & applications. 
Internet, like electricity is a force for equal opportunity & freedom.

Electricity brought luxuries of the feudal era, fans, light, music & entertainment to common people. Freed common people from drudgery of physical labor by tools like washing machines & industrial cranes. Freeing people to pursue education & leisure.
The internet in this century is poised to free the common people from tyranny of "the information elite" & provide them with unprecedented tools of Personal, peer to peer communication & innovation to challenge entrenched incumbents. When a new company can become worth a billion dollars within 12 months - that's the kind of wealth creation that pulls millions out of poverty.

Any effort to reduce or throttle access to the internet on a differential basis - will have grave ramifications for democracy, freedom & upward mobility of the poorer sections of population.

Information equality depends upon the road (information highway) staying neutral to whoever wants to walk or drive on it.

Because always keep in mind - people don't buy roads, people buy cars. Even when roads are all bad. We still aspire to drive cars that we choose. No one would want to buy cars chosen by the road operator!

Let no one create roadblocks. Nobody owns the road. All Telcos have is a license to build-operate-maintain. & possibly Transfer.
This would be a good time to demand TRANSFER of these roads to the PUBLIC after x period to prevent rent seeking, permanently.

This govt has made it a policy to abolish toll on physical roads. A similar policy must be in place for the information highway. For precisely the same reasons. & for all the reasons enumerated above.