By Krithi Ramamritham & Aaditeshwar Seth

With its verdict on Monday barring differential pricing of data services, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) has upheld best practices in line with what is best for long-term public discourse towards India’s broadband needs.

India has set an example for the rest of the world to preserve innovation and transparency on the internet. The verdict will go a long way in establishing network neutrality as a benchmark for future upgradation of networks, bandwidth services and introduction of new services. While some telecom service providers (TSPs) and content providers have argued that a differential pricing model helps them with bettering their response to customers, it is laudable that Trai has taken a larger view of the situation.

It has, in fact, stated that differential pricing is “anti-competitive, nontransparent, discriminatory and against content innovation”.

A key takeaway from the verdict is a clear message to the likes of Facebook that discriminatory practices, such as the proposed Free Basics programme, are not welcome in India. Facebook’s initial approach to partner with TSPs, their massive advertising campaign and their response to Trai have been seen through by the regulatory body.

The verdict, though important, is a first step in safeguarding our digital frontiers. We will have to take sufficient well-thought-through steps to weed out and thwart attempts that infringe our sovereignty in the digital world. Trai must certainly not stop here.

Though the verdict states that we may revisit this issue two years later, it also takes into consideration views on alternative models. It discusses a method based on Universal Service Obligation Funds, corporate social responsibility (CSR) and the much-needed National Optical Fibre Network (NOFN) as an alternate way to subsidise access, where public funds are used for public needs, thereby thwarting any corporatisation of free access.

To that end, the Trai verdict points out that no clear, well-thought-out model exists today. Perhaps this is where the government, along with research institutions, can ensure that such situations of exploitation as witnessed by Facebook’s Free Basics scheme have no place or role.

Going further, the whole perspective of providing free internet to the poor funded via differential pricing or other more net-neutral methods actually ignores some fundamental issues. To ensure appropriate use of the internet, free or subsidised access must go hand-in-hand with a parallel initiative to promote greater information, localisation and digital literacy for consumers.

TSPs, being custodians of the public infrastructure that is the internet, by virtue of being the licensee to sell services to the public, have a moral, legal and social compulsion to uphold the best interest of the public. They must introspect into how to make networks profitable while not cutting corners (by, for example, partnering with content providers and creating an anti-competitive framework). They must also use cutting-edge locally relevant technology towards providing affordable broadband at large.

A correct decision has been taken. This is not only ideal for India, but also shows leadership in the digital domain for other developing nations to safeguard themselves against exploitative programmes in the garb of ‘internet for all’.

The war for achieving a truly digital India may have just begun. But the first struggle for net neutrality has just ended in favour of the Indian public. India needs to take its mission forward by demonstrating strategies through which internet adoption by the poor is not only encouraged but benefits them in meaningful ways.

(Ramamritham and Seth are members of faculty, Dept of Computer Science & Engineering, IIT Bombay and IIT Delhi, respectively. The other contributors to this article are Bhaskaran Raman, Siddhartha Chaudhuri and Ashwin Gumaste, IIT Bombay)