Net Neutrality

A multitude of mobile applications, some for networking, a few may be for restaurant searches and the rest for entertainment are a must have for every smart phone user. Use of these applications for simplifying or enhancing everyday living might soon become a 'privilege' if telecom companies have their way. With the noise about net neutrality getting louder by the day as many web users have taken to the social media platforms, this article aims at demystifying the concept and how it will affect the public.

What is Net Neutrality?

Want to chat with a friend who’s miles away? WhatsApp them. Want to share cool stuff? You have Facebook. Want to instantly upload pictures and hashtag them to infinity and beyond? Use Instagram. This can go on for a while; you get my point. What if your telecom operator told you, you can only use the apps they provide? Mind you, this doesn’t necessarily have to be the same as what you like or use. That’s where net neutrality comes in.

Net-internet; neutrality- being impartial. Oxford’s definition of net neutrality is, “The principle that internet service providers should enable access to all content and applications regardless of the source, and without favouring or blocking particular products or websites”.  Enjoying all websites, social networks, and accessing everything on the internet without paying for each website/application separately is what net neutrality is all about.

Why are telecoms against net neutrality?

The carrier services in India primarily focused only on selling talk time; selling internet was secondary for them. Apps like WhatsApp, Viber, Skype have replaced the traditional calls and SMS. That is a potential threat to the service providers because in due course of time, they might not earn any money at all from calls and texts.

Right now, telecoms are treating all third party applications (WhatsApp, YouTube, Facebook, etc) the same. In other terms, all data is treated equally irrespective of who created it. But, what if these applications are treated differently on monetary basis?

Example, the messaging app WhatsApp pays the telecom provider for its promotion. This means, WhatsApp will load much faster than any other messaging app. You will be pushed to use only WhatsApp, because your favourite Telegram would not be fast enough.

With evolving technology, this is nothing new. In this case, the internet is posing a threat to the profits of the network carriers. They are sure to fight it as it might them cost them in revenue and profit margins.

Why should you care?

The main reason you should care is because it’s the web user's right to choose what they want from the internet.

It is also worrisome that giants like Google, Facebook, etc. can pay their way to make the most of this situation. This can crush the start-up market which in turn, will negatively impact innovation. And basically, the internet will be divided into ‘fast lanes’ and ‘slow lanes’.

Even websites like Google and Facebook, which are very successful now, had very humble beginnings. They were able to start up because of net neutrality.