Trai floats paper to look into differential pricing in data services

This comes amid debate on net neutrality and zero rating plans and is in addition to earlier paper on net neutrality, on which it is yet to give recommendations

The Telecom Regulatory and Authority of India (Trai) has issued a consultation paper on differential pricing for data services.

It has asked if telecom operators should be allowed to have different pricing for accessing different websites, applications and platforms.

This comes amid a debate on net neutrality and zero-rating plans.

Trai said: “Till now, the regulatory guidelines on discrimination and transparency in tariff offers were more focused on addressing concerns in voice telephony. The growth of data usage and the manner in which data schemes are being designed by service providers calls for a relook at the regulatory principles of non-discriminatory tariff and transparency measures in the context of data tariff offers.”

Trai said some service providers were offering differential data tariff with free or discounted tariffs to certain contents of certain websites, applications or platforms. Trai has invited comments till December 31.

Differential tariffs results in classification of subscribers based on the content they want to access (those who want to access non-participating content will be charged at a higher rate than those who want to access participating content). “This may potentially go against the principle of non-discriminatory tariff. The potential benefits and disadvantages of such practices have to be weighed in order to determine the regulatory approach,” Trai said.

In the consultation paper issued on Wednesday, the regulator has asked if differential pricing for data usage was permitted, what measures should be taken to ensure non-discrimination and affordable internet access among others were addressed.

Trai has also asked stakeholders to specify about alternative methods or technologies or business models, other than differentiated tariff plans available to achieve the objective of providing free internet access to consumers.

The paper showed that Trai will look into the zero-rating plans offered by telecom players.

Bharti Airtel had withdrawn its Airtel Zero platform, which would have given users free access to certain websites. Airtel Zero had created a furore as many said it was against the principle of net neutrality. Airtel had said Airtel Zero was just a marketing platform.Under Airtel Zero, companies, including start-ups, could offer applications for free and the app-maker was to pay for the customer’s free usage to the operator.

Similarly, Facebook’s Internet.org allows access to certain websites without mobile data charges.

Net neutrality means all internet-based services be treated equally, with no discrimination in terms of speed and cost of access.

According to Trai, there were about 300 million wireless internet subscribers in the country as on June. Out of this, about 207 million subscribers use 2G (GPRS, EDGE and CDMA-1X) networks to access internet, about 92 million subscribers use 3G (HSPA, WCDMA, EVDO) and rest are 4G LTE subscribers. The average data usage per data user for 2G service is 200 Mb per month and average data usage per data user for 3G is about 800 Mb per month.