Net neutrality in India
On 12 July 2018, The Department of Telecommunications made rules, approving the recommendations from TRAI, which heavily favoured net neutrality in India.
[3] More recently, the spectacular rise of Reliance Jio and the reduction in the total number of Internet service providers to three has raised concerns regarding the market moving towards a monopoly.
[4] In March 2015, TRAI released a formal consultation paper on Regulatory Framework for Over-the-top (OTT) services, seeking comments from the public.
[10] This move was welcomed by millions of Indians and also by people from other countries who are fighting or fought for net neutrality ,[11] and the inventor of the World Wide Web, Tim Berners Lee.
[12] Specifically, in December 2006, a consultation paper published by TRAI noted that even though the Internet had been neutral since 1998 when private ISPs were allowed to begin operations, the situation might change in the future.
[16] In February 2013, Killi Kruparani, Union Minister of State for Communications and Information Technology, said that the government would look into the legality of VoIP services.
[20] In August 2014, TRAI rejected a proposal from telecom companies to make messaging application firms share part of their revenue with the carriers or the government.
[21] In October 2014, Vodafone India CEO Marten Pieters suggested that companies like Facebook and WhatsApp should be taxed to ensure a level playing field with telecom operators.
[26] Later on 29 December 2014, Airtel announced that it would not be implementing planned changes, pointing out that there were reports that TRAI would be soon releasing a consultation paper on the issue.
[30] Sunil Mittal, CEO of Bharti Airtel, criticised the concept and said, "If you are going to make the data free, then let's do completely philanthropic projects.
[36] The Communication and Information Technology Minister, Ravi Shankar Prasad, on 7 April said that a committee will be formed to study the net neutrality issue.
[41][42] On 7 April 2015, the Member of the Parliament from Odisha, Tathagata Satpathy, wrote an open letter to TRAI in support of net neutrality.
[43] On 16 April, the Chief Minister of Odisha, Naveen Patnaik, also wrote an open letter to TRAI supporting net neutrality.
[48] On 11 April 2015, a YouTube comedy channel All India Bakchod uploaded a video titled "Save The Internet" which urged people to email TRAI demanding net neutrality.
[citation needed] The Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) soon afterwards launched a counter campaign called Sabka Internet, Sab ka Vikas.
It claimed that COAI members aim to connect the unconnected citizens of India and demanded that VoIP apps should treated as cellular operators.
However, in a recent article, it is clear the TRAI has taken a stand supporting net neutrality after giving thought to both sides of the debate with the help of the consultation papers addressing the issue.
[62] In their latest ruling,[10] they have stipulated that: In an emailed statement to the press,[63] a Facebook spokesperson said, “While disappointed with the outcome, we will continue our efforts to eliminate barriers and give the unconnected an easier path to the Internet and the opportunities it brings.” Similarly, Mark Zuckerberg said that his colleague's controversial tweet that "Free Basics was same as Colonialism"—Marc Andreessen was "Deeply upsetting"[64] On 28 November 2017 the TRAI released its recommendations on Net Neutrality.
Telecom minister Manoj Sinha said on 12 December that the TRAI's recommendations were similar to the views expressed by a DoT committee in 2015 that had also acknowledged the need for net neutrality and suggested allowing for legitimate traffic management.
