Net neutrality at stake? Again OTT and telecom company about the proposed Internet usage fee

Net neutrality is the principle that service providers must treat all data on the internet equally and not discriminate or charge differently depending on user, content, website, platform or application.

In July, the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) released a consultation document on the regulation of OTT. The agency has now received comments from telecommunications service providers (TSPs) and groups representing OTT.

The TSPs reiterated their need for OTT to be regulated to ensure a level playing field and demanded that the OTT pay a fair and reasonable fee to the TSP for increased data usage without they create.

However, many industry bodies, civil society organizations and consumer groups have argued that OTT is adequately regulated under the current Information Technology Act of 2000.

These bodies, including Broadband Forum of India (BIF), Asian Internet Alliance (AIC), Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI), Consumer Trust & Solidarity Association ( CUTS) and The Dialogue, also warned that the imposition of a network usage fee — as required by TSP — would pose a potential threat to net neutrality principles and lead to consumers incurring extra fee.

However, telecom operators argue that net neutrality means equal treatment of all content and is completely unrelated to the ‘fair share’ that they demand OTT to pay.

In their comments, uploaded to the TRAI website this month, the Mobile Operators Association of India (COAI), Bharti Airtel, Reliance Jio and Vodafone Idea (Vi), made the point that only those Only large or important OTT service providers are responsible for paying fees. ‘fair share of fees’ for operators.

The executive body argued that similarly to entities charges users for the commercial use of their assets or infrastructure, TSPs – who invest in nationwide telecommunications infrastructure – will receive a fair and fair share of the fee from users using their network infrastructure.

The industry body, as suggested by Bharti Airtel, Reliance Jio and Vi, has proposed that startups or smaller OTT providers be exempted from “fair share fees” to ensure that innovation and entrepreneurship is not affected.

Regarding concerns raised by civil society agencies and OTT applications that such fees will affect India’s net neutrality stance, COAI said in its submission: “It is necessary to It must be acknowledged that net neutrality is concerned with treating content objectively and has absolutely nothing to do with fair sharing fees.” is paid by OTT to TSP. It is worth emphasizing here that our member TSPs are committed to following the principle of net neutrality under their licensing conditions.”

This stance is also echoed by private sector telecommunications service providers. Vodafone Idea, in its submission, said that “content and services will remain fully accessible without the need to implement traffic management/differentiation for any particular entity.”

“There will be no throttling, no blocking, and no prioritizing fees,” it added. “The price for traffic paid by the end user will not change depending on whether the traffic creators are paid their fair share.”

Bharti Airtel also says that “the need for systematic traffic generators to contribute fairly to network deployments has nothing to do with the net neutrality debate.”

Also read: TRAI’s OTT regulation program is confusing. It forgets consumers, serves telecom interests

‘OTT is not a free racer’

Meanwhile, think tank BIF reiterates that OTT services and services provided by licensed TSPs are not the same and therefore should not be subject to the same regulations. They added that OTT services are already subject to regulations and any additional regulations that need to be applied or enhanced must be done in accordance with the applicable IT Act.

“They (OTT) are not free riders insofar as they are not merely running on TSP networks as the name OTT suggests,” the BIF said. “OTT service providers not only make huge investments to bring content as close as possible to the end customer, but more importantly, OTT services are also a significant revenue generator for TSP, if not yes then the network pipe will be almost empty. “

It added that the ‘same rules of service’ is a principle of competition, but that OTT services and TSP services do not belong to the same relevant market.

“Consumers use telecommunications for basic voice and SMS services as well as OTT applications for rich interactive content and features,” it said.

However, this line of argument is met with resistance from TSPs. Reliance Jio argues that the assertion that the ‘Same service, same rule’ principle does not apply because OTT operates at a different layer than licensed TSPs is “invalid”.

“A Unified License (UL) issued under the Telegraphic Act is required both for the installation/maintenance of telecommunications networks as well as for the provision of communications services using those networks,” Jio said in the report. mine. “Therefore, UL is required to provide any or all telecommunications layers including network layers such as physical network/internet and service layers such as voice, video, and messaging.”

They added that any OTT service that enables one-to-one communication – whether voice-based, video-based, or message-based, or via file transfer – could be used by consumers in lieu of normal communication services are provided by TSPs and are therefore subject to national security and/or data privacy-related exposure risk.

Reliance Jio argues: “Therefore, in the public interest, such OTT communication services should be included in the licensing and regulatory framework by introducing a new chapter in the unified license, UL (OTT). Communication)”.

Charge consumers twice

IAMAI, in its submission, clarified that Airtel and Reliance Jio members have a different point of view from their own. The association also expressed concern that the TRAI consultation paper introduced the idea of ​​a “cooperative framework” between OTT communications service providers and apparently licensed telecommunications service providers. such as “substantive provision for… the ignorant cost-sharing needs of some industry associations”. “.

Revenue sharing agency essentially means charging twice for the same service because consumers already pay TSP for the data they use, the industry body pointed out, adding that part of the ‘reasonable fee’ This reason’ will eventually be passed on to the consumer, thereby increasing the cost of using the internet.

“It also goes against the net neutrality framework announced by the Ministry of Communications in 2018, which states ‘the network must be neutral to all information transmitted through it (and) all communications passing through it. networks must be treated equally, i.e. independent. about its content, application, service, device, sender or recipient address,” it argued.

It further emphasizes that it is not OTT players that “consume huge amounts of bandwidth”, but it is the consumers who transact and purchase data independently from the TSP.

In its submission, another industry body, AIC, further explained that if TSPs were allowed to charge different rates for different OTT services – this could be based on various factors such as existing relationship with the OTT service or whether these rates are appropriate. depending on the popularity of that service – then net neutrality would be violated.

They add that TSPs can also create revenue sharing waivers for their own OTT services (especially since most TSPs have also ventured into the OTT space) and this has may lead to concerns about both net neutrality as well as competition law. .

(Edited by Zinnia Ray Chaudhuri)

Also read: Signal to Telegram, India wants to monitor communication apps But telecom bill is not the answer

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