The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) will hold an open house discussion on traffic management practices and a committee to enforce Net Neutrality regulations on June 24. Here is all you need to know about the consultation if you'd like to participate in the discussion (register here). We will cover the discussion live. In 2018, the Telecom Commission had approved TRAI's recommendation that strong Net Neutrality rules be made a part of the licence conditions. The main Net Neutrality issues that remain are traffic management and oversight. In 2016, TRAI prohibited discriminatory data tariffs. The other way Net Neutrality, the principle that all data must be treated equally on the internet, can be violated is if telcos choose to slow down speeds for some parts of the internet. They cannot do this for business reasons, as TRAI has abundantly made clear. But they might still do it to manage traffic — video bitrates across several streaming services continue to be suppressed at telecom operators' request, across all internet connections in India. Traffic management practices Traffic management practices (TMPs) are the methods telcos use to manage traffic to keep the network running well. But depending on how telcos do it, TMPs could violate Net Neutrality by slowing down specific parts of the internet (like gaming or video), whether there is congestion in the network or not. Here's a lowdown of the responses to this aspect of the consultation in filings: Telcos argued that TMPs should not be significantly regulated, and that…
