MOS IT Rajeev Chandrasekhar opposes telcos’ demands to charge OTTs ‘fair share’

TRAI’s recent consultations on regulating app-layer services have reignited the debate on net neutrality. Private telcos and other Internet providers are now suggesting that these apps should pay a “fair share” for accessing their infrastructure, challenging the core tenet of net neutrality.

Minister of State for Electronics and Information Technology, Rajeev Chandrasekhar, took to X (formerly Twitter), saying that India is one of the first countries in the world to ensure Net Neutrality and pushed back against Telcos wanting to be gatekeepers of the Internet. That decision was an important factor in India becoming a world-leading innovation economy with a vibrant global standard start-up ecosystem. 

The minister wrote, “Net Neutrality in India was a hard fought battle for those who remember - which started during UPA govt and peaked in 2015/2016. I led an effort where over 5 lac Indians wrote to @TRAI opposing efforts of some Telcos to cabelize the Internet & double dip/charge. PM @narendramodi ji vision made India one of the first countries in the world to ensure #NetNeutrality and push back against Telcos wanting to be gatekeepers of the Internet. That decision of PM was important factor in India becoming world-leading innovation economy with this vibrant global standard start-up eco-system that we see today.”

OTT services, spanning areas like streaming, networking, shopping, and gaming, are the lifeblood of India’s digital entrepreneurship. They have also provided high-quality content for little-to-no cost to users. This, in turn, has spurred the rapid growth of data consumption and economic activity in India. Mandating revenue-sharing mechanisms between OTTs and TSPs would effectively reverse this phenomenon by disincentivizing growth for OTT-based businesses, for whom a volume-based revenue sharing mechanism would be a glass ceiling for continuing growth and may prove to be an entry barrier for start-ups.