The Indian government is not going to change any rules surrounding net neutrality. The private telcos asked for a change in rules as with 5G, the digital world evolves into something new and the old rules don't seem perfect anymore. According to an ET report, the government is going to ask the telcos and the OTT (over-the-top) companies to find a solution by working together. The aim is to not affect connectivity for the average user at the end of the day.
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Changing rules surrounding net neutrality can affect connectivity for the consumer. That is why the government doesn't want to do it. The telcos had asked the government to bring OTT apps under the licensing regime and also bring a system where they can collect a fair share charge from the OTT companies.
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The telecom players feel that they invest all the money in the networks to carry the traffic for OTT companies but they don't get anything in return from them. Further, the OTT companies offer the same services as the telcos and they don't have to pay any statutory fees. With 5G, things such as network slicing and more would be possible and thus, the telcos asked for a relook into the rules of net neutrality.
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Well, the government is unlikely to change the rules for the telcos right now. So it is unlikely that they will be able to charge something extra to the OTT companies. The argument put forth by the tech companies here was that the telcos are able to generate data traffic in their networks because of the OTT companies. They already get paid by the consumer for the network services and thus the OTT companies should not be asked to pay any additional charge on top of that.
