Last week, MediaNama submitted its counter comments for the TRAI consultation on Free Data issues of Net Neutrality, countering claims made by telecom operators on the Net Neutrality issue of discriminatory / differential pricing, and the related issue of Free Data. Excerpts of our counter comments are below. The entire submission may be read here. Select excerpts from the initial comments A reading of regulatory filings from telecom operators over the years will point towards the use of: An appeal to emotions (farmers, education, fishermen in Kerala), whereas their primary responsibility is to investors. An appeal to fear (privacy, national security concerns because of unlicensed companies) A fallacious cry for help (telecom operators have been voicing worries about bankruptcy and debt for over 10 years, despite many of them being profitable, and sustainable). A fallacious claim of unfair treatment: while they benefit from spectrum auctions which allows them exclusivity in terms of usage of spectrum and provisioning of access, they invariably complain of having to pay too much, and having paid, of seeking preferential treatment.Anything out of this standard playbook ought to be ignored, since it is disingenuous. 2. In particular, we’d like to point out that Reliance Jio is conspicuous by its silence, and we’d like to remind the TRAI of its submission last year, wherein it asked for: Bringing online (OTT) services under the regulatory framework Bilateral arrangements between stakeholders, such as TSPs and content providers, in terms of commercial and technical arrangements. Reliance Jio is offering several…
Please subscribe to MediaNama. Don't share prints and PDFs.
You May Also Like
News
Google has released a Google Travel Trends Report which states that branded budget hotel search queries grew 179% year over year (YOY) in India, in...
Advert
135 job openings in over 60 companies are listed at our free Digital and Mobile Job Board: If you’re looking for a job, or...
News
By Aroon Deep and Aditya Chunduru You’re reading it here first: Twitter has complied with government requests to censor 52 tweets that mostly criticised...
News
Rajesh Kumar* doesn’t have many enemies in life. But, Uber, for which he drives a cab everyday, is starting to look like one, he...