Congress supports net neutrality: Maken

The Congress on Tuesday said it fully supported net neutrality and asked the government to direct the telecom regulator TRAI to scrap an ongoing public consultation on whether telecom operators should impose differential charges for services like Skype and WhatsApp.

Party leader Ajay Maken noted that any telecom framework that empowers telecom and internet service providers like Airtel and Vodafone to charge users for OTT services in addition to the charges for their data usage, would have far-reaching consequences and compromise net neutrality.

"Internet service providers (ISPs) and telecom service providers (TSPs) will have power to decide which service should be offered for free of cost or should be made cheap or expensive. This will amount to telling people which website they should use for online shopping. This will mean that the consumer will have no power to choose where he should shop from. It is very complex and will have far-reaching consequences," Maken, who heads the party's Delhi unit, told reporters here.

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India brought out a 118-page consultation paper to prepare a framework for over-the-top (OTT) services like Whatsapp, Skype, and Viber. It is seeking comments from the stakeholders by April 24 and counter-comments by May 8.

Referring to Section 25 of the TRAI Act 1997, Maken asked the government to take "stricter measure and issue policy directives to TRAI that will be binding on the regulatory authority in public interest and scrap this regulatory framework consultation paper".