Net neutrality is one of the growing
issues in a number of countries across the globe, especially in the
emerging countries where Internet usage via mobile phone is going past
the fixed-line web. Net neutrality basically means ISPs are supposed to
treat all sorts of Internet access in the same fashion.
Indian telecom giant Bharti Airtel
has come out against the net neutrality and asked the Internet
companies such as Google, Yahoo! and Facebook to share their revenues
for using operators’ expensive infrastructure.
Bharti Airtel's senior official Jagbir
Singh recently said the telecom regulator should levy interconnection
charges for data services, as it is applied for voice calls. “Today,
Google, Yahoo! and others are enjoying at the cost of network operator.
We are the ones investing in setting up data pipes and they make the
money. There is interconnection for voice then why not for data,” he
told Hindu Business Line.
While pointing out that network is
capital intensive, he further said that the telecom operators have to
pay huge sums for spectrum and that the voice revenue was dipping. He
also highlights that the Internet companies such as Google are enjoying
valuations that are ten times of a traditional telecom player.
Airtel in India is the first telecom operator to launch LTE-based 4G services
in the country. The operator reveals traffic from Web sites such as
Facebook, Twitter and Google account for nearly 40 per cent of its
overall data traffic.
It's notable telecom companies across
the world have been pressurising the regulators to resolve this issue.
The Internet companies such as Google, on the other hand, have been
pushing 'network neutrality' on grounds that the Internet should be free
and does not need to be controlled by regulation. Telecom operators are
finding it tough to keep upgrading network to meet the rising data
demands.
It's learnt that carriers in the US and UK are quite vocal against net neutrality rules. European Commission is conducting an EU-wide consultation period
to gauge public opinion on net neutrality. To collect responses the EC
has created a questionnaire that any European citizen can complete.
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