COAI says OTTs paying Fair Share Charge won't violate net neutrality

The proposed fair-share charge to be levied on from over-the-top (0TT) service providers will not violate net neutrality allegations around the same seek to misguide and confuse people, the Cellular Operators Association of India(COAI) said on Wednesday.

Taking on claims made by technology and startup players, the industry body also stressed that telecom service providers are not in favor of extending the charge to startups, and small businesses, instead seeking compensation only from large traffic generating (LTG) OTTs.
 

"Contrary to the misguided opinions being floated in various fora, all of the concerns being raised such as favouring one website/application/service, pricing differentiation, decision on charging fair share on a case-to-case basis are imagined and speculative scenarios," COAI Director General S.P Kochhar said in a statement. Representing the three private telecom service providers (TSPs) Reliance Jio, Bharti Airtel, and Vodafone Idea, COAI had earlier suggested levying a licensing fee of 8 per cent on OTTs on a recurring basis.
 

TSPs have claimed the charge is necessary for the development, upkeep and sustenance of robust and quality telecom networks across the country, as colossal traffic is being loaded on the networks as data demands grow steadily.

A fairer allocation of network costs can relieve the pressure on consumer prices for communication services as the only way to meet the enormous investment needs of the sector, COAI has said.

The principle of net neutrality mandates that all internet providers give its users equitable access to all content and applications on the internet without any discrimination. If internet service providers (ISPs) or telecom companies give preferential treatment to certain types of data traffic, that would constitute a violation of the net neutrality principle.

But COAI has stressed Indian telcos are bound by their license conditions to ensure net neutrality, and will continue to do so. "COAI affirms that the proposed fair share charge does not affect access to an open and free Internet. The content and services for consumers would remain fully accessible with no traffic management or differentiation. Further, there will be no throttling, no blocking and no paid prioritization for any service or application irrespective of the fair share charge paid," Kocchar said.

He added that the price for the traffic paid by end users will not change depending on whether the traffic generator is subject to fair share payments or not.

No impact on startups

By defining a threshold to be subject to the obligation, COAI has said only largest traffic originators will have to pay for the service of delivering their traffic to end users.

"Our proposal for providing exemptions to startups, MSMEs and small enterprises within the OTT ecosystem from payment of fair share charge, as clearly mentioned in our submission to TRAI, establishes a supportive framework for nurturing startups," Kocchar said. It also ensures that smaller players enjoy the advantages of improved network quality.

Last week, 129 startup founders including Paytm's Vijay Shekhar Sharma, Zerodha's Nitin Kamath, and Toppr’s Zishaan Hayath, had written to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) against accepting the fair share charge, media reports had said.