New Delhi: Telecom service providers have urged the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) not to consider the objection of 128 start-ups against the demand of network usage fees from Over-The-Top (OTT) service providers.
They alleged that the entire premise of the submission by the start-ups is based on misinformed views, adding that “falsehood and misinformation” were used to gather signatures from the Indian startups.
As many as 128 Indian start-ups had in September written a joint letter to the TRAI, objecting to demands by telecom operators to impose network usage fees on internet-based service providers such as WhatsApp, Netflix and Telegram, apart from bringing them under regulatory regime.
In response, the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) – which counts the Reliance Jio, Airtel, and Vodafone Idea among its members — wrote to the regulator alleging that “the very foundation of this letter lies on falsehood and misinformation, which has been used by the entity from which it has originated (Save the Internet) to gather support and signatures from multiple Indian Internet companies”.
“In actuality and very contrary to what has been propagated in the misleading letter, the proposed fair share charge would be beneficial to the startups and MSMEs, since the low usage companies who lie below the threshold of usage capacity for being liable to pay the charge, will not be required to pay the same,” the COAI said in the October 4 letter.
ThePrint has a copy of the letter.
At the same time, the association added, the enhanced telecom infrastructure resulting from the infusion of this revenue would help these startups and MSMEs to deliver better quality services to their customers.
Telecom operators have previously mooted that large or significant OTTs pay a fair and reasonable charge to Telecom Service Providers (TSPs) for the increased data use they generate. On the other hand, OTTs have argued that this will pose a potential threat to net neutrality principles.
Net Neutrality is the principle that service providers should treat all data on the internet equally, and not discriminate or charge differently by user, content, site, platform, or application.
The startups argue that “allowing price differentiation based on the type of content being accessed on the internet, would militate against the very basis on which the internet has developed and transformed the way we connect with one another”.
The telecom service providers, the COAI responded, are not asking for any price differentiation for similar placed entities “and this perception being propagated by certain entities is a grave misconception and myth”.
“While the contours of the proposed fair share charge have not been discussed in detail, we can assure that there will be no differentiation of costs or quality based on the entities mentioned. The proposed fair share charge will be uniformly designed based on usage volumes, with certain thresholds to determine the applicable charges, and not based on differentiating pricing for individual entities,” it said.
There will be no preferential treatment or difference in the quality of service offered amongst the B2B companies catered to, irrespective of whether they are lying above or below the usage threshold, the COAI added.
The industry body argued that net neutrality pertains to nondiscriminatory treatment of content, which has no nexus to the “fair share charge” issue.
“We would like to place on record that all provisions of Net Neutrality, as enunciated in the license conditions, are being and shall be followed by our member TSPs,” the COAI said.
It also highlighted that telcos’ license requires them to “not engage in any discriminatory treatment of content, including based on the sender or receiver, the protocols being used or the user equipment…(and are) prohibited from entering into any arrangement, agreement or contact, by whatever name called, with any person, natural or legal, that has the effect of discriminatory treatment of content.”
TSPs strictly abide by these conditions, which are stringently monitored, the COAI said.
“It is also important to understand that all of the concerns mentioned – such as favouring one website/application/service, pricing differentiation, decision on charging fair share on a case-to-case basis, etc. – are imagined and speculative scenarios. Evidently, people and companies are being misguided by propagating such unfounded fears and supposed scenarios by certain entities with vested interests,” the industry body said.
(Edited by Tony Rai)
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