TRAI seeks views on net neutrality from stakeholders

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) on Monday invited comments on its pre-consultation paper on net neutrality from all stakeholders by June 21.

"The pre-consultation paper is an attempt to identify issues, which will help us to formulate views for policy or regulatory interventions on net neutrality," the regulator said in a statement here.

Noting that a variety of applications, websites and other forms of content on internet has enhanced user choice, it said the range of services have varying characteristics, uses and bandwidth requirements.

"Increasing internet usage, particularly of services that consume high bandwidth, may require TSPs (telecom service providers) to adopt measures to protect the integrity of the network and provide quality of services to their users," the statement said.

As net neutrality merits in-depth study of issues, including the selection of tariff management tools by TSPs, the paper highlighted the importance of unrestricted access to internet, transparency and informed choice by users, besides customer privacy and national security.

"The Department of Telecom (DoT) has also sought our recommendations on net neutrality, including traffic management techniques; economic, security and privacy aspects of OIT services and areas covered in our March 27 consultation paper," the statement added.

The comments should be sent to A. Robert J. Ravi, advisor, on advqoS@trai.gov.in or faxed to 011-23213036. They will be posted on TRAI website.

--IANS

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