Pay attention: Net neutrality is a bigger fight than Section 66A

This is a fight that will, in one way or other, shape the future of internet and related services in India. If you are active on Twitter you must have already seen the phrase "net neutrality" circulating your timeline. But in coming days, even if you are not on Twitter or Facebook, you can expect to hear about it nonetheless.

Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, or TRAI, the body that regulates the Indian telecom sector, is seeking public opinion on the matter of net neutrality, and has come out with, what it calls, a consultation paper. Once the consultation process is over, it is likely to come up with new rules that will make or break the concept of the net neutrality.

But what exactly is the net neutrality, who are the people part of this fight and what is at the stake exactly?At its basic, the idea of net neutrality is fairly simple. On his website Tim Wu, a professor at Colombia Law School and someone who arguably coined the phrase net neutrality, defines it as a "network design principal".

"The idea is that a maximally useful public information network aspires to treat all content, sites, and platforms equally," he says. He then cites the example of electricity. "The general purpose and neutral nature of the electric grid is one of the things that make it extremely useful. The electric grid does not care if you plug in a toaster, an iron, or a computer."

The internet is similar. The network doesn't care whether you read Bible on a website or watch pornography. All content is delivered to the user at the same speed without any bias. This makes internet a very dynamic tool as it allows people to treat the network as a constant. This means there are no restrictions on content - essentially open and free internet for users - and because internet service providers can't tinker with traffic or treat gamut content differently, it gives everyone a level playing field whether you are a billion dollar company such as Google or a million dollar firm like Duck Duck Go.

So far, this internet with net neutrality at its centre, has worked well. But, obviously, not everyone is happy about it. So now we have two camps - one that is in favour of net neutrality and one that is not. Agencies like TRAI are supposed to play referees.

The camp that is in favour of net neutrality comprises web users, net activists, a lot of technology firms and anyone who wants to keep the net simple and free of artificially created rules and norms.The camp that is not in favour of net neutrality is primarily made up of internet service providers who want control on how the network they provide is used and want to levy extra fee on successful services such as WhatsApp that use internet.

There are some good arguments on both sides of the camp but essentially the benefits of net neutrality are such that it is hard to imagine the internet without it. That is if you are looking at the whole issue objectively. Unfortunately, TRAI seems to have already made up its mind.

In its consultation paper, TRAI repeatedly shows the bias against net neutrality, probably at the behest of Indian telecom industry that resembles a cartel instead of a free and fair market. TRAI defines net neutrality as an abstract idea that has little implications in the practical world. Then it stresses that internet services like WhatsApp has an inherent advantage and are robbing the poor telecom companies like Airtel and Vodafone of revenue. Nothing is far from the truth.

The stance of TRAI in its consultation paper is alarming. The idea of net neutrality may seem abstract but without it, here is how Indian internet will look like: 

1) International voice calls from India to the US that costs Rs 15 on WhatsApp may cost nearly Rs 150.

2) Google may open faster because it will probably pay internet service providers while Duck Duck Go will be slow because it doesn't have money to pay.

3) New web services will face uphill task because they may not have extra money to pay to internet service providers.

4) You may end up with an internet that resembles DTH connection. Five email services, five gaming sites, two news sites bundled for Rs 50 per month. For other services, buy another bundle.

5) Companies like YouTube and Vimeo may be forced to strike deals with internet services. Without these deals they may not reach consumers.

6) Internet service providers may promote their own services by providing them for free while discriminating against other services.

7) With all the content filtering and special plans in place, there will be more privacy risk as all internet usage would be monitored more extensively. 

Now, even if TRAI doesn't mind such internet, recently Nikhil Pahwa of Medianama wrote that it acts more like representatives of telecom providers instead of a pro-consumer body, this will disastrous for the web users and technology companies in India. In fact, across the world people are recognising benefits of upholding net neutrality. Recently in the US, FCC codified net neutrality as a rule. In Europe too, the concept that all data has to be treated equally is something that various regulatory bodies take very seriously.

In India too we need to make sure that TRAI and telecom operators don't get their way and create boundaries on the virtual world where none exist for now.