Net neutrality has found support in one of its most unlikely allies to date, the telecom industry body we all know as COAI or Cellular Operators’ Association of India. In case you didn’t know, this non-governmental group’s core members are some of the very companies that have been asking the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India to pass laws which go against fair business practices.
Airtel, Aircel, Reliance Jio, Idea Cellular, Vodafone, Facebook India Online Services, Nokia Networks and Ericsson are amongst the COAI’s associate members. While Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has defended Internet.org which is also part of the net neutrality debate, Airtel has released an official statement declaring its love for fair access to the web.
Now COAI itself has come out in support of net neutrality and asked the concerned companies as well as the government to take part in an all encompassing debate on the issue. The worldwide web is a place that lets users go anywhere without having to pay an extra fee for visiting any particular site or application. No websites are favored above others.
If companies like Reliance or Airtel could have their way, you would have to cough up special fees to visit certain sites or to use select applications, even though you’ve paid for data in the first place. Would you shell out more cash than what you’ve been charged for on your electricity bill just for using particular appliances like the geyser, computer or oven?
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Telecom operators’ main argument in favor of passing anti-net neutrality rules is that they’ve spent a lot of capital on licensing, spectrum fees and infrastructure. Instead of earning it back through voice calls and SMS revenues, they are losing out to applications like WhatsApp, Skype and Line. This is why they’re lobbying for special charges on such OTT services.
OTT or Over the top apps use the data you’ve already paid for to deliver you their services. Network providers think it’s unfair of OTT companies to piggyback on the investment made by telecom companies. What no one’s saying is that operators may have to face a lean period until their losses in voice and text are made up for by consumers using more data.
But this is hardly the fault of OTT services seeing as Airtel, Vodafone and the likes could have used a part of their profits to create rival OTT apps instead of complaining because someone else decided to be innovative. Net neutrality is about treating all Internet-based apps as well as websites equally and not favoring one above the other.
Also see: AIB posts funny video asking you to demand net neutrality and ‘Save the Internet’
COAI insists that all it’s lobbying for is net neutrality along with a sustainable environment for the telecom industry. Apparently, we will need to earmark an investment of Rs 300,000 to 500,000 crores for the next 10 years in order to fulfill the Prime Minister’s Digital India venture which supports net equality.