Telecom industry defends ‘fair share charges’ on OTTs proposal; rejects impact on net neutrality

• OTTs and telcos are at loggerheads on the latter’s proposal to levy fair-share charges on Large Traffic Generators (LTGs).
• LTGs are making no contribution to the development, upkeep and sustenance of quality telecom networks, COAI argues.
• Broadband India Forum says the move will adversely impact innovation and violate net neutrality guidelines.
  

Telecom industry body COAI on Tuesday defended its proposal to levy fair-share charges on ‘Over the Top’ or OTT service providers like Disney Hotstar, Netflix, Amazon Prime etc. It hit out at statements that the move would affect net neutrality and would result in double charges for customers.

In the last few weeks, OTTs as well as telco bodies like Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) have been sparring over the latter’s proposal. COAI argues that Late Traffic Generators (LTGs) responsible for 70% of the total internet traffic must make a ‘contribution’ to telcos.

LTGs are using TSP networks to deliver their services, but making no contribution to the development, upkeep and sustenance of robust and quality telecom networks across the country – that’s required for catering to the huge traffic being loaded on the networks, the industry body notes, said Lt Gen Dr S P Kochhar, director general of COAI.

The net neutrality argument

COAI’s sharing proposal has been met with a lot of criticism. The Broadband Forum believes that over-regulation of OTTs would be counter-productive.

“It would also adversely impact innovation, lead to discrimination, adversely impact smaller entities and startups, and lead to a violation of Net Neutrality guidelines," said T V Ramachandran, the president of Broadband Forum.

Net neutrality is a principle an internet service provider has to give equal access to all sites, apps, content without preferential treatment of any of them.

Indian telcos are bound by their license conditions to ensure net neutrality, and will continue to do so, said Kocchar.

“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/differentiation. 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, he added.

Fair Share approach would incentivise a more efficient handling of data without impairing customer experience, the industry body insisted.

COAI also says that OTTs decide traffic volumes delivered as well as compression techniques, i.e., transmitting in standard definition, high definition or ultra-high definition and how to proceed in case of network congestion by reducing the quality of the streaming.

Features such as auto-play, continuous-play or advertising automatically provisioned in these services, which result in significant traffic volumes, COAI said. It also said that its proposal intends to exempt startups, MSMEs and small enterprises; and includes only LTGs which generate disproportionately high traffic.