SSB GD Series: Net Neutrality: Who benefits? Who Pays?

Recently the words Net Neutrality have taken the media by storm. Everyday we hear some protesting against it while some in support of it. The argument is over the fact that People who pay more for internet usage will get a higher speed and access to sites and other work which involves internet whereas those who would pay less or won’t pay at all will have limited options, their speed will be limited and would not be able to able to access content which they able to access now. This has caused a huge debate among the masses as Internet is one body which should be equal for all.  The debate over whether Net Neutrality should be applied in India and the Airtel Zero program has involved some of the biggest names in Media and Internet.

Net Neutrality implies that all internet data pack should be treated equally, there should not be any fast or slow lanes for internet, or that users should pay differently for accessing some sites. The Telecom Regulatory Authority Of India(TRAI) which has come up with  a paper to implement the law on internet usage has received 6lakh emails so far from people throughout the country.

If the regulations laid out by TRAI come into action the lives of every person would get affected both in good and bad ways. Before looking at how a common man would get affected lets focus on the companies. In a country like India where startups are heavily dependent on the internet for the success of their business, applying regulations on internet usage would only destroy their business. Also if this regulation is applied chances are that Gmail would get faster than Microsoft Outlook or Yahoo or vice versa depending on who pays more to the internet service provider.

As for how the common person would get affected if regulations on internet usage are applied, we can look at the pros and cons of this application.

Pros for net neutrality:

• No restriction: currently there are any restrictions on what parts of the Internet people can access. Leaving aside the sites, which are meant for government use, people have the liberty to access and use the content from any site. For example there are no restrictions over emailing, file sharing, instant messaging and much more. With the regulations in action all these would be gone, and would only be accessible by payment.
• No Throttling: Currently the Internet service providers cannot change the download or upload transfer rates which people are using.
• No censorship: There is no restriction on how much and what people download, except for the connection rates.
•  Capitalism: Net neutrality currently provides an equal opportunity to rise for all the starters, if gone the startups would face heavy losses.

Cons against Net Neutrality:

•  Restrictions or Censorship – With regulation over net usage in play, the internet service providers (ISP’s) can restrict what users view on the internet. They could block certain services like peer to peer file transfer etc. Also the ISP’s would have the power to stop any criticism against themselves and any political leader or party.
• Anti competition: The ISP’s would have an advantage to stop or restrict users from accessing content of their competitor.
• Throttling: The ISP’s would control what type of data will have what transfer rates. For ex: Google’s email would be faster than Microsoft Hotmail, or vice versa depending upon who pays the ISP more. Also peer to peer file transfer could be slower than email depending on which carries less data.
• Money: ISP’s could charge more money for the users who use more internet. The ISP’s have the belief that the heavier users should pay more.
• Monitoring: With Net Neutrality out of picture the ISP’s could track down what content the users access on the internet and can use that information’s they choose thus keeping the privacy if the user in jeopardy.

In my point of view Internet had and should always be a source of free knowledge for the users. It should be free and the users should not be charged for it. There should not be put any such constraints that those who pay more would getter better facilities, as compared to others who don’t. As for the people who don’t have Internet access the government must make arrangements to make them exposed to the Internet world so that they too can learn and grow and become better human beings.

About the Author: Shekhar Tanwar is a computer science engineer who is working with a renowned MNC and is a die heart defense aspirant. Guitar is his passion and he is very firm believer of physical fitness. This article is a way to help defense aspirants to present his critical views on the topic, on the forum so that collective exchange of thoughts can take place.