Drawing a curtain on the ‘Digital Equality’ debate and ways to achieve it, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has come out with it’s order to support universal and seamless internet access as opposed to differential pricing for data services as proposed by Facebook’s ‘Free Basics’.
The TRAI order, Prohibition of Discriminatory Tariffs for Data Services Regulations 2016, explicitly bars all telecom service providers to offer or charge discriminatory tariffs for data services on the basis of content. However, for accessing or providing emergency services or at times of emergency, reduced tariffs have been permitted, which has to be reported to the authority within seven working days. In case of any violation, the service providers will be fined Rs.50,000 per day, subject to a maximum of Rs.50 lakh.
The order has received mixed reactions from the telecom world. The COAI view it as a retrograde step in India’s ambitious ‘Digital India’ initiative as price differentiation could have enabled harnessing the power of the internet and make it available to the people at the bottom of the pyramid.
The order has come as a major setback to Facebook’s Free Basics that planned to offer free internet in India on the basis of differential pricing for data services in partnership with Reliance Communications.
For almost a year, the Facebook and the TRAI had been at loggerheads over the issue and the latter had blamed the social networking giant for having “orchestrated opinion poll” and polarized the nation by lobbying for its ‘Free Basics’.
TRAI in its release has maintained, “Given that a majority of the population is yet to be connected to the Internet, allowing service providers to define the nature of access would be equivalent of letting Telecom Service Providers shape the users’ internet experience.”
The intranet has been exempted from its purview for now. The TRAI will review the regulations after two years.
News Source: Indian Express, The Hindu, Scribd
Image Source: Governance Today
