First let’s
understand What is Net
Neutrality?
Net
Neutrality is simply the Internet Freedom — Open, Fast and Free Internet for
all.
Net
Neutrality means that Internet service providers (ISPs) should give consumers open
access to all contents and application on an equal basis, treating Internet
traffic equally.
Today,
INTERNET is the only thing which makes everyone “equal” across the globe.
Equality over the Internet means, the richest man in the world has the same
rights to access the Internet as the poorer. And that is where "Net
Neutrality" aims at.
But, What if
someone snatches this Freedom from you?
What if you
have to pay extra charges for every single application you want to use?
What if you
have to pay extra charges for loading website of your choice faster?
That’s
exactly what the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) is planning to do
with Indians.
TRAI is
planning to allow telecom Giants like Vodafone and Airtel to block applications
and websites in order to earn more money from consumers and businesses, which
is nothing but an extreme
violation of Net Neutrality.
Recently,
the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) approved the strongest Net
Neutrality rules in the United States.
Even the
European Union is facing pressure from citizens to push strong Net Neutrality.
However,
this term is relatively new for citizens in India, but the Government of India
wants to decide the fate of both Net Neutrality and citizens in India before
the Indians get to know about it.
First, let
me clear some of your doubts if the term Net Neutrality is new for you.
Till now, We
have enjoyed the Internet freedom the way it is -- freely and fully. But soon
the India's Telcos and telecom regulators will change it all for you.
Till now,
the telecom operators in India enjoyed making hundreds of thousands of millions
in profits over a long period of time.
The
operators have focused on selling text messages packs and voice call minutes,
however behind the scene they have been using VOIP (Voice Over Internet
Protocol) to connect with other telecom operators and deliver calls using the
Internet.
The cost of
traditional voice calls that the operators were charging the consumers were
much larger than the tiny fraction of the cost of VOIP.
However,
this market is now snatched from these greedy telecom companies -- thanks to
WhatsApp, Skype and Google Hangouts. Now, users can easily get the same voice
calls delivered at Internet prices by using one of the above services.
Soon your
telecom operators would charge you extra money for using WhatsApp, Skype or
Viber. They could block certain websites they do not like, could provide faster
speeds to the highest bidders and slower speeds to other services.
This simply
means if, for example, you love to shop from Amazon, but Flipkart pays telecoms
operators, then they’ll not let Amazon website load on your devices, and you’ll
end up using Flipkart.
So. What
could you do?
...TRAI has
prepared and quietly released a consultation paper with 20 questions and wants people to answer them via an
e-mail by April 24, in order to hear people’s opinion on Net Neutrality.
But, as this
news spread across the Nation, it became a topic to debate on social media,
news channel, and Internet forums.
No comments:
Post a Comment