Combating the major issue of Net Neutrality is something on everyone’s mind. Take a deeper look on how we perceive it.
The Internet has become an integral part of our way of life. The government has even christened the advent of Digital India – an initiative long due. This change has brought talks about bringing high speed internet to even the rural areas of India and making government services available to the citizens electronically and minimizing all that paperwork.
Right now, for those of us with our smart phones and constant need to be up and about the Internet, the digital space is an open playground. The Internet has given us access to infinite possibilities. It gives us knowledge, opportunities, social connections and employment. It is no doubt that everyone deserves equal and all access to the content available on the World Wide Web.
But recently Net neutrality has been an issue we can’t help but talk about. Combining the know-how of Net Neutrality and the ongoing debate that has been blowing off the charts, here’s our view on the change.
In simple words Net Neutrality refers to equal access to all content and data on the Internet. Whether it’s a 9gag post or a parody of your favorite song, each piece of content by itself is entitled to equal access. It also means that irrespective of what telecom operator you choose, you should have the right to access all content on the Internet with the exact same speed. Giving every portal the same opportunity as the other.
Net Neutrality is crucial in our times to foster progress, innovation and competition. Not only does it support start-ups and entrepreneurs to commence their business, it also creates a market for them. There is default advertisement and distribution of products and services to customers. It makes the Internet a fair field of play, where everyone gets an equal opportunity at showcasing their views, ideas and opinions.
Making tweaks in the concept of Net Neutrality, Zero rating is now being argued to be disadvantageous to the principle of Net Neutrality. Zero rating is a practice among mobile network operators, where customers are not charged for a certain volume of data by specific applications or internet services.
Although enticing to the user, critics of this practice believe that ‘zero rating’ is NOT conducive to an open and healthy competition. Internet service providers and telecom services should give all websites, apps and services equal treatment and no one website should be given greater preference over the others or discriminated against.
Flipkart recently took this view into deep consideration and abandoned the ‘zero rating’ discussion with Airtel only eight days after the latter unveiled it. This arrangement stated that Airtel users would have free access to Flipkart, while Flipkart paid for the data used by the consumers. The shopping network also announced that after a great amount of deliberation both internally and externally, they had a birds eye view of the implications of zero rating and they will be walking away from the ongoing discussions with Airtel.
The vision of seeing India completely connected from root to tip by the digital world is a big one. After taking the fact that in India voice connectivity is approximately 60% and data penetration is at about 20% it is fairly obvious that the vision does face some challenges. After all, we stand at staggering 129 out of 166 countries on the ICT development index. This means we most definitely are one of the least connected countries in the world. So what is it that lies at the heart of it all? Net Neutrality marks a major section of the Digital India initiative. A number of countries have already adopted this revolutionary ideology and it’s time we do too. Each country is different and of course we do have to alter and customize it to ensure the maximum welfare of our citizens and the whole and soul state of digital development in India.
Having a low rate of digital connectivity, especially in the rural areas, as well as a lower purchasing power we need to come up with an India-Centric Net Neutrality.
By now it might seem that Telecom companies are fighting net neutrality. Their point view states that Telecom Providers only make money off data usage, and no other revenue from bandwidth or carriage. Making a fair statement, they are not involved with the planning selling or enabling of OTT apps. The websites and applications on the other hand, generate a lot of revenue from transmitting this data across. The telecom operators do not get a percentage of the same.
Still, it is believed telcos do score benefits through applications carried by them. More app usage, increases data consumed and by default generates more money.
They also believe that they are investing huge capital into building the infrastructure to in order to develop and maintain these data services. These OTT services eat into their revenues, causing it difficulty in earning their investment back. A gripping argument made by the telecom providers for charging differently for different bandwidth is given by and easy example of VoIP usage. Voice over Internet Protocol uses a large amount of bandwidth. This service may be used scarcely by our folk in the rural areas and can clog up basic services that the economically challenged citizens require more. Sometimes it isn’t just about the profits made but also providing apt services to the customer and efficiency of the same. The telecom and Internet infrastructure in India still has a long way to go and the private companies can only make these investments if they earn a decent profit.
Another crucial point of Net Neutrality is the necessity for no blocking of content on the Internet. Apart from the sites that have implications on national security or social norms, all other content should be freely accessible to the user. Of course, not every Indian user would voraciously utilize the internet. This would mean that even a man that focuses his net usage to some basic websites, would be subsidizing a heavy user of the internet. It is important we come up with a net neutrality plan that allows all users to reasonably use the services provided and have an advantageous experience.
For now the majority of other telecom operators have not followed these same principles as Airtel, and chances are you can always change your service provider to continue all access to the content you browse.
All the discussions about Airtel, brought into picture Internet.org, an initiative started by Facebook to bring two-thirds of the world that doesn’t have Internet access, together. This initiative hopes to provide people all over to have the basic access to the Internet, and certain websites.
Under the initiative, in India, users of Reliance Communications have free access to Facebook and some other useful websites like OLX, AccuWeather and Dictionary.com, with Facebook paying RCom for the data consumed on the latter’s network. Some argue that Zero Rating can affect the way the users perceive the internet. Contrary to the philanthropic image Internet.org portrays, it will only be a matter of time until consumers start equating the Internet with the names of a handful of OTT websites and apps that offer full and free access. This can hamper a number of things. It will monopolize the use of the Internet and make it highly anti-competitive to other websites and applications. It poses a major threat for a new comer or a player that has the concept to excite but not the resources to transfer it.
As a rebuttal, Mark Zuckerberg pitched into the debate and posted his views in a blog post – “Some people have criticized the concept of zero-rating that allows Internet.org to deliver free basic internet services, saying that offering some services for free goes against the spirit of net neutrality. I strongly disagree with this,”
Zuckerberg further says, “Net neutrality ensures network operators don’t discriminate by limiting access to services you want to use. It’s an essential part of the open Internet, and we are fully committed to it. But net neutrality is not in conflict with working to get more people connected. These two principles — universal connectivity and net neutrality — can and must coexist.”
A great argument but not enough to convince everyone, applications such as Cleartrip, and others under media firms like NDTV have exited Internet.org after the much talked about debate. Even the Times Group stated that they might exit if their competitors did so.
Recently U.S. President Barack Obama, also came in support of net neutrality stating “We cannot allow Internet service providers (ISPs) to restrict the best access or to pick winners and losers in the online marketplace for services and ideas”.
