India’s telecom regulator TRAI has backed net neutrality and issued recommendations by declaring Internet as an ‘open platform’. The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India has been debating for this issue for nearly 2 years now. TRAI suggested the telecom department to make changes in the license terms and prevent any kind of discrimination on internet services as it should be equal for everyone.

“A Licensee providing Internet Access Service shall not engage in any discriminatory treatment of content, including based on the sender or receiver, the protocols being used or the user equipment,” TRAI said in the recommendations.

Under the recommendations, any service provider will not be allowed to make any kind of contract or agreement that can make discrimination based on content, apps or any other service or data that is used on the internet. Trai even recommended the government to establish a multi-stakeholder body for the purpose of monitoring all the service providers.

Below are the main points of TRAI’s recommendations

• Trai backs net neutrality, free and open internet.
• Any discriminatory treatment based on the network protocols or the user equipment will not be allowed.
• DoT should set up a multi-stakeholder body for monitoring and investigation of violations.
• Specialised services which are optimized for specific content shall be exempted from principles of discriminatory treatment.
• Internet of Things(IoT) based services are not excluded from the restrictions on discriminatory restrictions. However, the critical IoT services which are included in special services will be automatically excluded.