While the US
Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has recently adopted strong net
neutrality rules that would prevent cable and phone companies from creating
fast and slow lanes on the Internet, in India the country’s telecommunications
regulator (TRAI) has sought comments from consumers whether the telecom
companies should be allowed to charge users extra fees for services like
YouTube, WhatsApp and Skype on top of the fees already paid for access to the
Internet.
The higher charges
are sought to keep telecommunications companies in business and they feel to have
a right to impose it on a premise that the Internet companies like Google and
Facebook are making lots of money on the large infrastructure network created
by the telecom operators. But, the telecom operators already earn by charging fees
for access to the network and in case the revenue was inadequate, they would
have raised prices. But in fact the prices have
fallen in recent times. Big telecom companies like Vodafone, which
does business are in fact quite
profitable.
The proposal, if
implemented, would hurt the consumers as access to some services would then cost
more money. It would also hurt smaller Internet businesses who could not afford
to pay fees to get preferential access. There is resistance to the proposal in the
country. TRAI has sought comments from the consumers by 24th April,
2015. Internet activists are organizing campaigns through Twitter, Facebook and
other social media sits educating the consumers against the regulator’s
proposal.
The Internet has
been so successful till now because people have been able to use it how they
wish to do. The worst thing that can be done is to allow the telecom companies
to mess with that. Let us see how the netizens are able to influence the
government, regulator and telecom operators in the country.
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