Re: Fwd: IAC's response to TRAI's Consultation Paper no. 2/2015 "OTT Services"

Follow the money

http://indianexpress.com/article/business/companies/airtel-move-to-charge-voip-calls-not-illegal-khullar/2/

Sarbajit

On 4/23/15, Banibrata Dutta <[email protected]> wrote:
> Few important points had got lost in some extreme "venting", that are only
> clearing up now... i.e. after discussions are returning to room
> temperature.
>
> The cookie-cutter / cyclostyled response sent out to TRAI, that had
> apparently flooded it's mailbox, is probably not the best tool. However,
> does it mean that it didn't serve any purpose ? I think, quite contrary to
> that, it's purpose was to raise awareness through direct-action, and bring
> visibility to the issues that would otherwise have been easily ignored. A
> side-effect though is that many specialized, well-written, individually
> crafted responses would get lost like needles in a hay-stack, and nobody
> from TRAI, is likely to ever find those. At the same time, I think that the
> volunteers behind #SaveTheInternet did try to listen to range of opinion on
> this matter, while drafting the response. I hope, that they had sufficient
> professional help as well.
>
> Facebook is far from being a model of "Net Neutrality". And google is
> perhaps not too far behind. They are not quite the shining examples of why
> Net Neutrality is important. However, neither of the 2 companies is likely
> to have become what they are today, had they started their life in a highly
> non-neutral internet. The real shining examples are the likes of
> "Coursera", "Khan Academy", "Uber", "Whatsapp" etc. I suspect that each of
> these organizations would find it extremely difficult to survice or thrive
> in a non-neutral environment. A non-neutral environment is likely to ensure
> that shallow-pocketed "disruptors" invariably fail - sooner than later.
> This is going to bring about stagnation, complacency and eventually might
> lead to bait-n-switch of services. Now, these are the things that are
> captured in the canned response. Question is, what is TRAI really going to
> do with the responses !
>
>
> On Wed, Apr 22, 2015 at 11:44 PM, Sarbajit Roy <[email protected]>
> wrote:
>
>> Hi Nikhil
>>
>> Cool.
>>
>> My 2 paise, This is a deeply insidious and wide-ranging RFC from TRAI
>> and trivialising this RFC as "net neutrality" is dangerous and
>> ultimately counter-productive.
>>
>> Sarbajit
>>
>> On 4/22/15, Nikhil Pahwa <[email protected]> wrote:
>> > Hi Sarbajit,
>> >
>> > my apologies for the standup comedy comment. That was a personal
>> > comment
>> > and I shouldn't have made it.
>> >
>> > My limited point is that whatever we are doing at savetheinternet.in
>> isn't
>> > funded. Some of the volunteers have given us their domain names (which
>> they
>> > had booked earlier after airtel began charging separately for VoIP) to
>> use,
>> > there's a tech team that has set the site up - all volunteers. We're
>> > not
>> an
>> > organization, and this is entire a volunteer effort, that we are all
>> > dedicating our own time and personal resources towards, because were
>> > very
>> > worried by the TRAI paper. That 'Mukesh Ambani's minions' comment is
>> > completely unfounded, and would be impossible to ever substantiate
>> because
>> > it isn't true. Just because FirstPost carried a point of view
>> (incidentally
>> > so have many other publications), doesnt make us anyones minions.
>> >
>> > Nikhil
>> >
>> > On Wed, Apr 22, 2015 at 3:46 PM, Tarun Dua <lists-w/I/[email protected]> wrote:
>> >
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> I did not imply or impute that you are a Mukesh Ambani associate or
>> >>> minion.
>> >>>
>> >>
>> >> Good.
>> >>
>> >>>
>> >>> I posted the link to your article accompanied by text describing that
>> >>> a
>> >>> news portal associated with Shri Mukesh Ambani, ie. Firstpost.com,
>> >>> was
>> >>> circulating articles encouraging people to "spam" the TRAI's
>> >>> consultation
>> >>> process on a non-issue like "net neutrality" over mobile phone
>> networks.
>> >>>
>> >> Oh, and you know even Facebook & Twitter are circulating articles
>> >> encouraging people to send email to TRAI.
>> >>
>> >> And why do you call it spam. Spam has the characteristic of being
>> >> un-solicited. TRAI has solicited views from public.
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>> There is a concerted campaign by foreign interests to get certain
>> >>> beneficial provisions of the IT Act disabled, directly or indirectly.
>> >>>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> Lack of net-neutrality laws helps foreign giants like
>> >> Facebook/Google/Twitter abuse their dominant market position more than
>> >> any
>> >> domestic Internet centric businesses.
>> >>
>> >>>
>> >>>
>> >>> The first step to this was taken in the SC's 66-A judgement - which
>> >>> under
>> >>> cover of 66-A effectively disabled the ITIGR 2011 in its concluding
>> >>> paras
>> >>> without any reasons - except that Google and Facebook were overloaded
>> >>> with
>> >>> complaints being made to them under these rules.
>> >>>
>> >> With due respect, Googles and Facebooks of the world have all the
>> >> financial muscle in the world to be able to handle an "overload" of
>> >> complaints they were supposedly deluged with. On the other hand it is
>> the
>> >> anemic & capital constrained domestic entrepreneur(s) who face an
>> >> un-certain regulatory environment.
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>> The net neutrality frenzy being whipped up, is only a smokescreen for
>> >>> more such skullduggery. And that Reliance Jio is the largest
>> >>> "datapipe"
>> >>> waiting to be activated makes it more interesting.
>> >>>
>> >>
>> >> Not buying your conspiracy theory, I don't see the point you are
>> >> making,
>> >> perhaps the point doesn't exist at all.
>> >>
>> >> Net Neutrality debate is happening because it concerns common people
>> like
>> >> us who have no access to levers of power and are trying to run our
>> >> startups/small businesses in an environment of capital constraints and
>> >> un-certain regulation.
>> >>
>> >> Also you are wrong about Reliance Jio being the largest "datapipe" to
>> >> be
>> >> activated. The largest un-activated and un-used "datapipe" happens to
>> >> be
>> >> BSNL+MTNL+Powergrid Tel+RailTel+GailTel in India.
>> >>
>> >> Regards
>> >> -Tarun
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> _______________________________________________
>> >> India-gii mailing list
>> >> India-gii-IAPFreCvJWP2/[email protected]
>> >> https://lists.india-gii.org/mailman/listinfo/india-gii
>> >>
>> >>
>> >
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> India-gii mailing list
>> India-gii-IAPFreCvJWP2/[email protected]
>> https://lists.india-gii.org/mailman/listinfo/india-gii
>>
>
>
>
> --
> regards,
> Banibrata
> http://www.linkedin.com/in/bdutta
> http://twitter.com/edgeliving
>