Trai to Soon Start Consultation on Traffic Management Practices for Net Neutrality

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) will soon start consultation on recommending a framework for traffic management practices as well as structure and nuances of a multi-stakeholder body outlined in the net neutrality principles. According to a senior Trai official, the discussion paper to tackle the twin aspects is likely to be brought out in about a month’s time, and the Trai intends to follow the consultative process before finalising its views on the issue. The net neutrality principles which were recently approved by the telecom department – prohibit service providers from discriminating against internet content and services by blocking, throttling or according to preferential higher speeds.

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Simply put, this means that entire internet traffic should be available to everyone on equal terms without any discrimination, and service providers cannot indulge in practices such as throttling any web traffic or providing fast lanes for specific content.

The Telecom Commission, the apex decision-making body at the telecom department, had approved the implementation of net neutrality with slight modifications to Trai’s past suggestion, and has now approached the regulator “to recommend necessary traffic management practices (TMPs) for consideration of the DoT”.

The Department of Telecom (DoT) has also asked the Trai to “recommend the composition, functions, role and responsibilities of the multi-stakeholder body” that will play an advisory role and assist the department on monitoring and enforcement of net neutrality rules.

The Trai official said to PTI the regulator would recommend the framework for implementation of internet traffic management practices to comply with net neutrality rules.