seminar in Noida on 5th May, 2015 on ‘Net Neutrality’, Social and Economic Perspective

Workshop was organized by Computer society of India, Noida Chapter and IMS-Noida today 5th May from 11 AM to 1.30 PM In his inaugural address, Shri Anuj Agarwal, Chairman, Computer Society of India, Noida Chapter mentioned that the internet is the only non discriminatory medium and platform for the world where no body is discriminated based on nationality, color of the skin, caste creed, birth origin, social or economic status, sex or any other thing. Internet is not governed by any particular government or company and it is guided by we the people, ‘the global citizen’.
Mr. Anuj Agarwal, also mentioned that the alexandar first in the recorded history tried to conquer the world and tried to make the world slave to him but we the Indians defeated him and this time also the big corporations who are trying to curtail the freedom on internet will get defeated in India.The Indian e-commerce space is dotted not only flipkart.com and snapdeal.com but by lakhs of small e-commerce companies who provide very good services to
people in a smaller area and without net neutrality, they will be completely wiped out.
Dr. Arvind Gupta, Key Note Speaker and National Head of the IT Cell of BJP, described the net neutrality and also described the fine difference between ‘freedom on internet’ and ‘free internet’. He mentioned that honorable Supreme Court has declared freedom of speech on internet as fundamental right and struck down section 66A of the IT ACT, 2000.He categorical mentioned that any distinction between data and voice and any other service is not the correct thing. The telecom operators are like road and highway providers and the road can not dictate where a person wants to go and at what speed. So let it be the choice of the person to decide where he wants to go and what speed etc. Since there is a massive amount of investment required to build the telecom highway to provide internet access to the rural India, the content and platform providers like facebook.com wants to play a role in subsidizing the building the telecom highway and in return wants to have exclusive access to customers and users, which is not acceptable.
He mentioned that the telecom operators world over use some methods to slow down video contents etc. to maintain quality of their service for voice etc.In conclusion he said the Net Neutrality is about four things put together
1) Speed
2) Cost
3) Access
4) Content
The net neutrality is required to help digital democracies as well ensuring the health and education like public welfare programs.Mr. Rajan Mathews, Director General of Cellular Operators Association of India and a renowned telecom expert, maintained that all telecom companies support Net Neutrality.But he mentioned that telecom highways are very complex highways and has slow and fast, light and bulk traffic. The telecom operators have to make distinction between the traffic to ensure that some of the traffic specially the voice traffic is given a priority, otherwise the voice call quality will be very poor and inaudible.
He mentioned that in India, telecom spectrum is at a scarcity unlike in USA where spectrum in the band of 50 Mhz is given for life to telecom operators while in India, it is in the range of 15 Mhz is given to operators at a high price and the operators also need to buy their own spectrum after 20 years.When the highway is congested some traffic differentiation has to be made and different pricing of different products will follow.The unique feature of India is that voice charges are low but the data charges are high as compare to USA.
Mr. Gopal Agarwal, BJP Economic Cell and a senior active civil society member, mentioned in his address that one has to see the entire debate from the consumer perspective. The consumer wants reliable services at an affordable
price. He also put the case of calculation the actual cost of telecom networks and operations because telecom is a public good.He presided over the session and mentioned that the debate should remain focused on the substance and should not get politicized and in the current political scenario, many people who may not know the nitty gritty of the subject may try to jeopardize a healthy debate.
He also mentioned about the social and economic impact of net neutrality.Shri Deepak Sahu, Editor-in-Chief, VarIndia.com supported net neutrality and put forward the social perspective on the need to have net neutrality. He was categorical and clear that net neutrality can not be diluted.Dr. Kamaljeet Singh, Director IMS, summed up the discussion and presented a vote of thanks.
The program was organized at IMS Institute Noida and was well attended by participants from CSI/ CA/ CS/ CMA/ Lawyers/ Directors/ Engineers/ Faculties and young students and entrepreneurs.