Telecom commission of India has recently approved the net neutrality rules under new telecom policy. Discuss the implications and concerns associated with it. (200 words)
Refer – Business line
Enrich the answer from other sources, if the question demands.
Shankaranand 6 years
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IAS Parliament 6 years
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IAS Parliament 6 years
KEY POINTS
Implications
· It is meant to ensure no service provider can restrict or discriminate in the treatment of content by blocking, slowing down or granting preferential speeds while providing internet access.
· A net-neutral regime allows smaller businesses and individuals to create and disseminate content without fear that their offerings will be swamped by larger competitors, or throttled by ISPs.
· It will remain an open platform and internet service providers (ISPs) will be prohibited from practices such as blocking content, degrading speeds, slowing specific content, or granting differential speeds or treatment.
· In that sense, net neutrality helps to promote innovation across the entire digital ecosystem.
Concerns
· Given India's hyper-competitive market, where telecom service providers have been struggling to generate enough revenues to service debts, tight net neutrality could be considered a restrictive approach.
· For example, under net neutrality, telecom service providers cannot offer “zero-rating” services where they charge surfers less to access specific websites or content run by partners.
· It does certainly restrict the freedom of telecom service providers to offer favourable terms to specific content providers, and does cut down the potential for creating new revenue streams.
· In technical terms new rules require both monitoring of compliance as well as a willingness to accept consumer complaints and penalise operators who violate the rules.
Suggestions
· Key element about the net neutrality regime is that certain critical services may be exempt from it.
· For example, emergency remote diagnostic and tele-medical services may need to be fast-tracked.
· The same may also be necessary for disaster management or during crowd management situations such as pilgrimages.
· Critical high-tech services like the management of smart power grids could also require priority, and there may be new applications such as autonomous car communications or drone operations, which might merit priority.
