Is the internet Facebook, Flipkart or Google, or any particular website or application? The beauty of the internet, and why it brings us so much value, is that it is a free-roam space: you can go where you want – to discussion forums, chat rooms, Reddit. You can watch documentaries and silly cat videos, or take free online courses or a pointless poll which tells you which animal you are most like. You can do all this and more, without ever wondering whether one site costs you more to access than the other.

This is possible because Internet Service Providers (ISPs), including telecom operators, are ‘access service providers’, and unlike cable TV operators, they have not been gatekeepers. Data is the fuel, and you pay for how much you consume and how fast it is delivered. No ISP or platform controls what you access and how much you pay to access it.

The neutrality of the access is what differentiates the internet from audience businesses like cable TV: it doesn’t treat content differently depending on its source. You have the same freedom to create and publish videos as STAR TV does and start a search engine to compete with Google. All access is equal, you are all creators, and all creators and consumers are equal.

In its net neutrality regulation on differential pricing in February, Trai showed great depth of understanding of these issues, but a couple of fresh developments threaten to undo that, and allow gatekeeping for internet access.

Firstly, ISPs might be allowed to become gatekeepers. In its regulation Trai prevented ISPs from charging differently for accessing different websites and apps on the internet. However, ISPs delivering exclusive content to their subscribers via an intranet can charge differently for different content, unless it is for the purpose of evading the regulation.

Now, if Trai allows Airtel to provide Netflix content exclusively to its mobile customers for subsidised or no data charges, it will give Netflix an advantage over its competitors. This would force Netflix’s competitors to seek similar deals with Airtel, thus giving Airtel gatekeeping powers.

Imagine this for the top 500 websites, and you would have the net neutrality regulation rendered pointless. From a consumer perspective, they would get access to different content on different ISPs, thereby killing the network effects that you get with neutral access.

Secondly, the new Trai consultation paper, issued last week, suggests that there is a need for a platform independent of telecom operators, which can “facilitate an application developer to promote their website by providing an incentive to users for making their website popular”. The incentive mentioned – “No data charges” – will have the exact same effect as the Airtel-Netflix model illustrated above. The difference here is that instead of a telecom operator directly becoming a gatekeeper, it can now tie up with, or set up another company, to play gatekeeper.

How does this ensure that internet access remains neutral, and how is this not a means to circumvent the net neutrality regulation? Both these models will together negate the great ruling on net neutrality from Trai in February.

Why do we have to look at these models when there are options which can allow users to access the internet for free, and do not violate net neutrality: Mozilla, for example, has two models under “equal rating”, where it offered free data to users in Bangladesh if they watched an advertisement, and in Africa, if they bought a handset. Free public Wi-Fi, whether in transit, at markets or at common service centres will not violate net neutrality. Nandan Nilekani has proposed a direct subsidy model from the government, to meet its access goals.

Another model, which Trai has suggested, is that of allowing websites and applications to buy data recharges from the market, and gift them to users as a reward. If Trai allows this model, it must ensure that each price and denomination of data recharge offered through a platform is also available in the market for users to purchase directly, online and offline. For the ISP to remain truly neutral, it must treat all consumers and creators as equal.

It’s important to remember that the issue is not with giving free access, but of limiting that free access to a selection of sites who are willing to pay or partner: a collusion which the department of telecom committee had warned against last year when it said that “content and application providers cannot be permitted to act as gatekeepers and use network operations to extract value even if it is for an ostensible public purpose”. Such gatekeeping creates tiers of usage: there will be those who are limited to a few websites, and those who experience the internet in all its glory. Freedom is as important as free.

That this is the third net neutrality consultation since March last year should tell you how much pressure Trai is under from the telecom lobby. How many times will people have to submit the same responses? One can only hope that the Trai chairman remains as committed to net neutrality as he was in February, and the government of India stands by the commitment made by the telecom minister in Parliament, to keep internet access in India neutral.