A More Equal Internet: India’s Net Neutrality Hangs in Balance

[Commentary] A recent paper released by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) threatens to seriously compromise net neutrality. Though still in a consultation stage, the paper suggests the Indian government may allow telecommunications operators to discriminate by allowing them speed up and slow down Internet traffic based on its source, ownership or destination. Such a policy would prevent the Internet from serving as the powerful empowerment and innovation tool it holds hope of becoming in a poor but economically rising democracy.

The business argument against net neutrality in India follows a similar pattern: it considers the services by telecom operators a technological investment that merits consistent returns; it labels Internet applications such as Skype as free-riders, who employ this technology to cannibalize their revenues; and lastly it suggests that the even greater profits companies stand to make by dividing the Internet is somehow necessary for continued innovation and for making the Internet more accessible to poorer citizens. In India’s case, these arguments are strikingly disingenuous. If the Internet is to assist the country’s development efforts and spur technological innovation as it has been able to do elsewhere, its neutrality must be scrupulously preserved. Before the Indian government then is a straightforward choice.