The Department of Telecommunications will soon be forming a committee (circular from 31 July, available yesterday) to advise the government on issues of monitoring compliance with Net Neutrality. The committee will have an advisory role, and its membership will be decided in consultation with the TRAI. The circular provides details of the Telecom Commission's acceptance of TRAI's recommendations on Net Neutrality, which were issued last November. While the circular largely brings TRAI's net neutrality recommendations into force verbatim, the committee's advisory role is a new detail. "DoT shall establish a multi-stakeholder body with framework for collaborative mechanism among the stakeholders. The body shall have an advisory role," the circular says. "The monitoring and enforcement functions with respect to Net Neutrality shall rest with DoT." The rest of the circular's implementation matches exactly with TRAI's recommendations. On a multistakeholder committee From MediaNama editor Nikhil Pahwa's post on TRAI's recommendations last November: Someone asked me whether such a [multistakeholder] committee can hold a statutory position. While terms and conditions have not been defined by the TRAI, it has essentially accepted something that NASSCOM was pushing for. They had done the same in case of the differential pricing regulation, wanting a greater say in the regulation process. I find it difficult to trust a multi-stakeholder committee or an organisation, over a regulator which can be held to higher governance standards, in terms of transparency, accountability, choice of participants, among other things. It is expected to be “led by industry” and include ISPs and TSPs,…
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