I am hereby pledging my full support to the idea of Net Neutrality and am against the initiative of COAI and the telecom regulators like Airtel to split up the internet into the easily accessible elite websites/services and the not so much ones.

How is it detrimental to Startups?

By charging differential rates or by developing systems like the Airtel Zero Plan, we would be favoring some websites more than others. This promotes the idea among internet businesses that to be easily accessible to the end user, we need to pay to get into this elite service. How can a new startup which does not have a lot of capital gather up the resources to pay for this entry? This would severely hamper the chances of success as consumers would most likely gravitate towards websites which have easy access (for being a part of this plan). This in turn would hamper innovation and would create an environment which is counter intuitive for startups.


How would it affect the end user?

As a user, when I have paid for the data package, how can the telecom operator decide which content I should use and which i should not. Something like Airtel's Zero Plan would encourage the user to visit Flipkart more than maybe Snapdeal as visiting and browsing Flipkart would cost no money to the user which is not the case with Snapdeal. Why should one website be promoted more than the other? How would a small company be able to compete where the balance is tilted against it.


How the telecom operators tackle the problem posed by OTT services?

The telecom operators may be having a hard time with the advent of OTT services like Watsapp and Skype as data charges are much lesser than voice or sms charges but they can counter these by increasing the cost of data consumption for the heavy user. For example, the lower limit data packs can be priced low but as the user consumes more and more data, this price can be increased which would allow the telecom operators to earn more money from heavy users. For example, a person using 200 MB of data per month would have to pay lesser money per MB of data as compared to someone who is using 2 GB of data as the heavy user would have to shell out more money for incremental recharges/heavier data packs. But each and every website should have an equal footing in the internet space and one website/service should not cost more as compared to another as this would be anti-competitive.

Impact of TRAI's Regulatory Framework for Startup's like Frolicode

Small startups like Frolicode has the best chance of success when they can compete on the same level playing field. If the field is tilted so much in favor of companies who have large amount of capital, the internet startup scene in India could soon be dead. We have pledged our dreams on our capacity to innovate and bring out the best ideas to the market, based on the openness of the internet and if the internet is divided between free and paid, our dreams may yet by dead.

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Thanks,
Siddharth
Founder & CEO
Frolicode Games