New Delhi: Sectoral regulator TRAI is scheduled to hold an open house discussion on differential pricing for data services, a key aspect of net neutrality, today at the PHD House in New Delhi.
Telecom operators have favoured differential pricing for data services while net neutrality activists continue to oppose any differential pricing regime, saying it would amount to curbs on freedom of choice to access Internet.
Net neutrality implies that equal treatment be accorded to all Internet traffic and no priority be given to an entity or company based on payment to content or service providers such as telecom companies, which is seen as discriminatory.
Countries like the US, Chile, Netherlands and Brazil have already adopted Net Neutrality that doesn't allow discrimination of Internet content or charge users differently based on the content, site, or platform they consume, the debate is still raging in India.
A debate on net neutrality stirred across the country after Airtel decided to charge separately for Internet-based calls but withdrew it later after people protested.
The debate heated up after Airtel launched free Internet platform Airtel Zero and later Facebook also launched its Internet.Org platform, renamed as Free Basics.
However, Facebook's campaign to project its Free Basics platform as a tool to spread web connectivity has been publicly criticised by TRAI. On January 20, TRAI made public a strongly worded letter addressed to Facebook countering allegations levied by the social media giant and criticising the manner in which the company made millions of its users send emails to TRAI in support of the controversial Free Basics service.
The letter addressed to Ankhi Das, Facebook's director-public policy for India, South & Central Asia, TRAI reiterates its previous stance that the responses sent in by Facebook on behalf its users were not, in fact, responses to the four questions posed by the regulatory authority in its consultation paper on 'Differential Prices for Data Services' but merely templatised response expressing support of Free Basics.
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