VARINDIA IT MAGAZINE

Considering the TRAI’s recommendations on Net Neutrality, the Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) has said that the recommendations are progressive in nature and are in line with the debates in the industry and user groups that have been raging for the last two years. For the industry, the recommendations are pragmatic in the sense that it recognizes the requirements of expansion of digital services in the country, when it makes reasonable exceptions for specialized services, reasonable traffic management practices or fulfilling international treaty agreements. Special provisions for IoT, specialized services and CDNs reflect forward-looking recommendations that take into account the needs of the foreseeable future. The TRAI recommendations ensure level-playing field in enabling emerging service providers to reach out to target audiences on the same terms with their peers. At the same time, recognition of special sectors like IoT, CDNs ensure that emerging sect...

A Workshop on Net Neutrality from the social and economic perspective was organized by the Computer Society of India, Noida Chapter, and IMS-Noida on 5th May, 2015. In the Workshop, dignitaries like Dr Arvind Gupta, Keynote Speaker and National Head of the IT Cell of BJP; Rajan Mathews, Director General, Cellular Operators’ Association of India; Gopal Agarwal, BJP Economic Cell and a senior active civil society member; and Deepak Sahu, Editor-in-Chief, VARINDIA, were present. In the inaugural address, Anuj Agarwal, Chairman, Computer Society of India, Noida Chapter, mentioned that the internet is the only non-discriminatory medium and platform for the world where nobody is discriminated on the basis of nationality, colour, caste, creed, birth, social or economic status, gender or any other thing. Internet is not governed by any particular government or company and it is guided by we the people, “the global citizen”. The Indian e-commerce space is dotted with not only flipkart...

Rahul khullar, TRAI Chairman, said, “‘Shrill voices’ won’t win the Net Neutrality debate in India and the concept is not ‘practised strictly’ even in countries like the US and the UK. A raging debate has broken out in the country by the launch of platforms like Airtel Zero and Internet. The uproar continues in favour of Net Neutrality. The Net Neutrality campaign targets start-ups as well as Net neutrality: Airtel Zero is a threat to Digital India plan. Anurag Thakur, IT Standing Committee head, bats for Net Neutrality. India needs to follow global best practices. MakeMyTrip joins the Net Neutrality chorus. TRAI has floated a discussion paper on this topic. In response to its paper, for which public comments have been sought till April 24, TRAI has already been flooded with over 8 lakh petitions against any attempt to throttle ‘net neutrality’ concept. The debate had begun after the telecom major Airtel decided to charge separately for Internet-based phone calls in December, w...

The COAI has reaffirmed its support to Net Neutrality and made a strong pitch for “Net Equality” that will enable access to Internet for a billion Indians as part of the Government’s Digital India vision. The Association has urged all stakeholders to have a comprehensive and informed debate on the subject of Net Neutrality, keeping in mind the requirements of India and its citizens. An important and complex subject such as this, which is still being debated in many countries, which has taken years to conclude in many other countries and which is the subject of litigation in some, should not be left to the opinion of a few. Clearing misconceptions that have arisen from the recent public debate over net neutrality and concerns over operators who are trying to control the consumers’ access to the Internet, COAI said, “We support an open Internet and believe that consumers should decide what to do online. Our job is to enable consumers to benefit from that freedom. We offer choice a...

Favouring net neutrality, Infibeam has taken a stand and is against all the biased Internet Service Providers (ISPs) of the country. Access to equal internet speed for any website or mobile app is the right of every consumer who is paying money for data to the ISPs. Hence, the ISPs cannot be biased and have to provide traffic equally. In India with over 15 ISPs, there are about 10 crore internet users. Despite huge number of internet subscribers and mobile users, the ISPs, which are also telecom operators, have been affected heavily. As per industry estimates, of the total revenue of the telecom companies, over 75% is contributed by voice and the rest is by value-added services, including data. Due to high investments and competition, the margins in voice are heavily squeezed. As an impact, the telecom operators are finding one or the other way to increase revenue and profit. Recently, a few telecom operators announced of giving free internet access to consumers for certain e-...