IAMAI supports recommendations on Net Neutrality by TRAI

Considering the TRAI’s recommendations on Net Neutrality, the Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) has said that the recommendations are progressive in nature and are in line with the debates in the industry and user groups that have been raging for the last two years.

For the industry, the recommendations are pragmatic in the sense that it recognizes the requirements of expansion of digital services in the country, when it makes reasonable exceptions for specialized services, reasonable traffic management practices or fulfilling international treaty agreements. Special provisions for IoT, specialized services and CDNs reflect forward-looking recommendations that take into account the needs of the foreseeable future.

The TRAI recommendations ensure level-playing field in enabling emerging service providers to reach out to target audiences on the same terms with their peers. At the same time, recognition of special sectors like IoT, CDNs ensure that emerging sectors in India will get the necessary regulatory cover for developing their services. The tech startups in India are working in the most cutting-edge technologies and services. The recommendations give due recognition to the special needs of such services in terms of exceptions.

The recommendations come as a great boost for improving ease-of-doing business and will aid inviting investments in digital businesses in India. According to IAMAI, for the consumers, these recommendations, read in continuance with the earlier position on Differential Pricing, bring the entire debate on Net Neutrality to its logical conclusion.

The debate on net neutrality was about the freedom and choice of access for end-users. By bringing all possible agencies of the ecosystem under the ambit of net neutrality with special provisioning that prevents collusive pricing of services (or bundled services), TRAI has ensured that customers are not coerced into walled gardens set up in collusion with different agencies of the digital ecosystem.

However, the government needs to act with speed on these recommendations. The TRAI’s position on differential pricing had a sunset clause of two years which is fast coming to an end. Thus, according to IAMAI, these recommendations should be adopted at the earliest, or else all the abovementioned benefits will be lost.