dailyO
Technology

Net neutrality: Airtel and others can fight against WhatsApp but they won't win

Advertisement
Javed Anwer
Javed AnwerMar 31, 2015 | 15:40

Net neutrality: Airtel and others can fight against WhatsApp but they won't win

The fight over net neutrality is just starting in India. We will see how it unfolds in the coming days. But in the long run, the fate of telecom operators such as Airtel, Vodafone, Idea and others is already sealed. This is a fight they are not going to win because it is already too late for them.

In its consultation paper on net neutrality, TRAI, which seems more like a cheerleader for the telecom operators instead of a pro-consumer body, repeatedly stresses that internet service providers should be able to charge extra for services like WhatsApp because these services use infrastructure created and developed by them.

Advertisement

This argument shows how weak the position of telecom operators is. Not only is it wrong from a purely economic perspective - operators have already reaped big rewards from their investment - but also shows the myopic vision of the telecom industry. And it is this vision that has brought them in the current position and is going to be their doom.

TRAI rightly calls the internet something that is disrupting the whole world, including industries like telecom and retail. But it is wrong in assuming that this disruption is not natural or that it can be halted just because there are companies still clinging to the old ways.

There are many things wrong with the Silicon Valley but one thing it does really well is coming up with ideas. Of course, out of 100 ideas that give birth to 100 start-ups, 95 fail but the other five become game-changers. You can call these innovations. They improve upon the existing set of services. They find ways around bottlenecks. They push the boundaries of what is possible.

WhatsApp is one such idea. It is a natural progression from SMS. It is used by scores of people solely for one reason - it is a better (and cheaper) service than what telecom operators provide through SMS. People don't use it because it uses internet. Or because it is at OTT - a phrase TRAI is fond of. People use it because it is convenient and cheap.

Advertisement

The interesting bit here is that no one stopped telecom operators from coming up with an app like WhatsApp. Unfortunately, at a time when they could have innovated, they focused on overcharging people for SMS, they devised ways to milk their subscribers even with crappy services. No wonder when people discovered WhatsApp they abandoned SMS.

But now telecom operators want TRAI to shield them from competition. They want to be rewarded for their laziness. They want to be loved even when in the last 10 odd years they have barely moved the needle on the scale of innovation or have bothered to find solutions to user problems.

No wonder, now when they face the threat from technology companies that are disrupting the world, like the automobiles disrupted the world of horse-driven carriages, they have nothing that they can use to their advantage. Even the people who use their services mostly hate them. The only thing they have is the telecom infrastructure, that too because it is a government-sanctioned monopoly.

But the interesting bit here is that telecom operators are making a huge mistake - they love making these mistakes instead of solving user problems - of overestimating their network. In the next five years, even the world of telecom infrastructure is going to change.

Advertisement

Both Facebook and Google are building telecom infrastructure. For now the stated purpose is to enable connectivity in remote areas and the telecom operators are partners. But you will be naive to think that these companies are pouring billions of dollars into the telecom infrastructure just to provide internet services in a remote valley.

These companies are getting really good. Google is already an internet service provider in the US. It serves its famous cheap 1gbps wired connections in three cities with five more to be added very soon. Recently, it also detailed that now with a single balloon it can beam 4G internet in an area with a diameter of 80km.

Give the Project Loon and Facebook's internet drones programmes another five year and a large number of users may not even require telecom operators.  It is not only Google and Facebook. Companies like Apple, Samsung, Microsoft and Amazon all have resources and motive to enter the telecom market.

The way forward for the telecom operators is to focus on users instead of working with the government to create artificial barriers so that they don't have to compete. The fight over net neutrality is the one they should not be fighting because it is against users and they can't win it. There is no escaping the competition or how TRAI calls it "disruption".

Last updated: March 31, 2015 | 15:40
IN THIS STORY
Please log in
I agree with DailyO's privacy policy