“Telecom should not define policy”.
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As there has been a surge in comments, the deadline was extended to August 20, from the original August 15.
Most people who shared their views have lent their support to Net neutrality, which means equal treatment for all Internet traffic, without discrimination or priority for any person, entity or company.
TRAI in April had received over 1 million comments, with a majority supporting implementation of Net neutrality. No privilege should be given to a website/app that pays Trai to have users browse its content for free. That said, the Mountain View company has been silent on the whole net neutrality debate in India.
A DoT panel has proposed regulation of domestic calls through Internet-based apps like Skype, Whatsapp and Viber by putting them on par with services offered by telecom operators.
It is but obvious for us to glance over Google’s stance over net neutrality in other countries. “It is our right as citizen of India”, says Prashant Sunil Chaudhari.
Numerous comments are against such moves by telecom operators requesting the government to make sure citizens continue to get unhindered access without any prioritisation accorded to any website.
Reacting on the issue, Telecom Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said that the government does not want non-discriminatory internet access.
Still an evolving concept, net neutrality calls upon government, internet service providers and other stakeholders to treat all voice and data services on the Internet equally, and not levy differential tariffs for usage, content, platform, sites, application or mode of communication.
The recent Net-neutrality discussion thread on MyGov.in has garnered an excellent support in favor of net-neutrality and open internet.
Zero rating allows the internet service providers to decide on the access fee for some of the services/websites.
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Google itself has been part of zero rated plans in India with Airtel though it has seemingly put on hold its own plans to provide free data to end users in India. “The DoT draft recommendations are too weak on this, and the government must take a strong stand to protect users”.
