Telecom Commission approves new telecom policy, upholds net neutrality
12 Jul 2018
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The Telecom Commission on Wednesday approved net neutrality rules, which bar service providers from discriminating against internet content and services by blocking, throttling or granting them higher speed access.
The Telecom Commission, the highest decision-making body in the Department of Telecommunications, approved the new telecom policy — National Digital Communications Policy (NDCP), 2018 — that ensures net neutrality or the accessibility of the internet to everybody in the country.
This means that service provider cannot restrict or discriminate in the treatment of content by blocking, slowing down or granting preferential speeds while providing internet access, telecom secretary Aruna Sundararajan said after the commission meeting chaired by her.
The draft Telecom policy, however, keeps certain Internet of Things services such as autonomous vehicles and digital healthcare outside the ambit of these rules.
The National Digital Communications Policy (NDCP), 2018 aims at promoting investments, ease of doing business, and emerging technologies like 5G. It also aims at $100-billion investment in the sector and creation of 4 million jobs.
Reacting to the net neutrality rules, industry body COAI said while it supported non-discriminatory use of the internet, including no blocking, no throttling and adoption of same service-same rules, it suggested a lighter regulatory approach so as not to hamper innovation.
Trai had already barred telecom operators from offering differential pricing of data, putting an end to Facebook’s Free Basics and Airtel Zero. The regulator had recommended a change in the licence conditions to restrict any form of discrimination in Internet access based on content.
“We are not accepting any walled garden. This is the same net neutrality principles which have been articulated by DoT earlier, and subsequently by Trai and reaffirmed by the Commission now,” the secretary said.
The DoT will amend the licence conditions of telecom operators so that they comply with the principle of net neutrality.
While Internet of Things (IoT) as a class will not be exempted from net neutrality, certain categories of IoT, which come under critical services, will be left out. Other than that, the DoT secretary said, in the age of autonomous vehicles and digitised healthcare, certain types of traffic needs to be prioritised.
DoT will form a committee to identify critical services and come up with a separate regime for such services, she said.
Explaining the critical services, an official said autonomous vehicles on the roads would be prioritised over a social media chat. Similarly, in healthcare, where a remote diagnostic surgery is taking place, internet traffic has to be prioritised because even a millisecond of connectivity drop can be fatal.
The DoT will also frame a policy on net neutrality traffic management after getting recommendations from Trai on the subject.
“We must ensure digital infrastructure is provided at the earliest. Therefore, India must have ease of doing business and enabling policy environment,” Sundararajan said.
On the new telecom policy, she said, “Key aspects and enabling provisions to reduce the levies have been mentioned in the policy and these would have to be translated into specific proposals, which would be done once the cabinet approves it.”
The commission also approved a proposal to rationalise double taxation for virtual network operators (VNOs), an essential step needed to ensure services from VNOs.
While 67 firms have taken up licences for VNOs, none of them have launched services because they were subject to double-taxation and in some cases triple cascading taxes.
Besides the commission approved a proposal for setting up over 1 million Wi-Fi hotspots across gram panchayats in the country. The DoT will provide Rs6,000 crore as viability gap funding to service providers to set up these hotspots. DoT will come out with a tender for this and the project will be completed by December.
In addition, a proposal to fund pilot projects through Universal Service Obligation (USO) Fund for newer technologies has also been cleared.
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