Following Airtel's violation of Net Neutrality principles, Rahul Khullar, the TRAI Chairman, while acknowledging that Airtel has violated Net Neutrality, made some worrying statements to the Financial Express, and left me wondering about the point of making a case before an already-prejudiced adjudicator, and whether the consultation will end up being a farce to justify a decision already taken by the TRAI. To the Financial Express, Khullar said: '“If the telecom players fall under a set of rules, then should not the OTT players be also brought under some kind of rules? Otherwise there would be a non-level playing field,” he said.' ... Pointing out the ways OTT players could be brought under regulation, Khullar said that there could be licensing norms for them also wherein they have to pay licence fees to the government on a revenue-share basis. The other option, which is simpler, is that a termination charge is put on calls originating from Viber or Skype kind of services.' Hear the interview on CNBC Awaaz, here, as well. While Khullar explains the case for bringing OTT applications (which, according to telecom operators, includes Social Networking, Instant Messaging (IM), Applications (Apps),VoIP, Cloud Services, Internet Television, IPTV, Machine to Machine communications), arguing about a level playing field, where is he explaining the consumer point of view, or the Internet industry point of view? If he has to present a case (he shouldn't), shouldn't he present cases from all three sides, to the audience, as a neutral, unbiased adjudicator? Instead, while he says Airtel's actions violate…
