Fight for Net Neutrality In India

If you haven't heard yet, the TRAI wants to allow telecos to regulate OTT services such as WhatsApp, Skype or Viber. While this does not directly imply that shit has hit the fan, it could allow Telecos to charge you seperately for each WhatsApp message, or make you pay equivalent charges for Skype calls etc.

Brief information has been published on medianama & Indian Express.

As of now TRAI wants your opinion on this. Shit hasn't hit the fan yet, and we can turn this around before this actually becomes a serious consideration. So, the first thing you can do is to email th TRAI on their comments email, which is : advqos@trai.gov.in You probably shouldn't copypasta someone else's email on this as it will lead to them believing that a few people are spamming their inbox. Some tooltips on what to write would be:

Some tooltips on what to write would be:

1. Refer to the recent Net Neutrality agitation, and the subsequent FCC ruling,
2. Talk about how loss of revenue to Telecos should not be the bar to progress,
3. Talk about how Net Neutrality laws have already been enacted in The Netherlands after a similar agitation there,
4. If you want to, talk about how rulings in favour of allowing said regulation are anti-development, and not what you expect from the Government.

What can you do about it ?

You can tweet the issue out and raise publicity. Since this ruling affects widely used services such as WhatsApp and Skype, more people should be willing to listen.

Here are few drafts Prepared by Reddit India & its users on Net Neutrality.

Link #1

Link #2