Over 3 Lakh Net Neutrality Emails Sent to Trai, Says SavetheInternet.in

Early on Tuesday, representative of Savetheinternet.in website announced that since its launch, over 3 lakh emails had been sent to Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) regarding Net Neutrality in India.

(Also See: Net Neutrality in India: 10 Latest Developments)

It is worth noting that the 3 lakh emails have been sent via just one site, and Trai has not revealed figures of how many emails it has received about the issue. Readers can still send in their views via the site, or directly to advqos@trai.gov.in by April 24. The site lets users send a pre-defined letter championing neutrality, or users can edit their responses. The site says its purposes is to "assist supporters of strong net neutrality in articulating their own views on the matter in a legally precise manner."

Several politicians and celebrities have also tweeted supporting net neutrality in India. Last week, Communications and Information Technology Minister of India, Ravi Shankar Prasad, had tweeted, "#Internet is one of the finest creations of human mind.It belongs to enitre humanity and not to a few. #NetNeutrality". "Our govt. believes in using #Internet for citizen empowerment. A committee has been set up in Dept. of Telecom to look into #NetNeutrality," he added.

(Also See: An Open Letter Answering Trai's 20 Questions on OTT Player)

Last month Trai initiated the process to prepare a regulatory framework for over-the-top (OTT) services like WhatsApp, Skype, Viber and many others, inviting comments from stakeholders.

The characteristics of OTT services are such that telecom service providers (TSP) realise revenues solely from the increased data usage of the Internet-connected customers for various applications and do not realise any other revenues, be it for carriage or bandwidth, it said. The regulator said written comments on the consultation paper were to be submitted by April 24 and counter comments by May 8.