TIMES VIEW:

NEW DELHI: Telecom companies like Airtel, Telenor and Reliance Communications have sought a revenue-share model from content creators - a demand that was strongly opposed by content companies as “unfair and unreasonable“ and against the tenets of net neutrality.At an open house session called by Trai on the issue of net neutrality on Wednesday, telecom companies demanded commercial arrangements with content creators to further monetise their mobile networks. The telecom players have been pushing for a share of the advertising pie generated by content companies, saying that they have made investments in network and spectrum.However, content companies say that telcos gain due to the popularity of their apps and websites that drive data consumption. The telcos' plea was opposed by content creators and those representing not-for-profit organisations. Save The Internet volunteer and Medianama founder Nikhil Pahwa rejected the argument of mobile companies and said the approach suggested by them will lead to "extortion" by telcos. "Telecom companies are unfairly trying to control access to the content," Pahwa said. He dubbed the monetisation suggestion of telcos as "ridiculous" and said it should be rejected."Commercial agreements reached upon by content companies are not the mandate of mobile companies."A representative of Reliance Communications said telecom operators should be given the leeway to deal with the commercial content or content-carrying advertisements.Wrapping up the discussions, Trai said it is likely to finalise recommendations on net neutrality in a month's time. "All stakeholders are actively participating in this (net neutrality) debate. I think Trai should be able to give appropriate recommendation to the government which they have asked for," Trai chairman R S Sharma said.The demand of internet service providers that content providers who carry ads on their websites should pay them for running a business on their networks is a bizarre argument and totally violates the concept of net neutrality.They are merely providing the pipeline through which data flows between the content provider and the consumer of the content.As long as they are paid for the amount of data that flows through their pipeline, it should not matter what the nature of the data is. That way, the consumer remains the person who chooses between content providers on a level playing field. Otherwise the pipeline owner becomes the arbiter of choice by making different content providers pay different rates for the same amount of use of the pipeline. That is unacceptable. The choice must remain with the consumer.