Net Neutrality: Telcos need to think beyond selfish and myopic moves

The Net Neutrality debate has put the spotlight on how desperate Indian telecom companies are, to find commercial gains from India’s rising internet might. Have they lost sight of the larger story, which is networking a huge part of India online, rather than just focusing on the current select population (120 million out of 1 billion plus) using the internet?

The backlash culminated in Flipkart withdrawing its plan to tie up with Airtel Zero, where Bharti Airtel would have mobile app makers pay for data usage to allow customers to use their apps for free. At the face value itself, there is something wrong with this idea of blocking, favouring and bringing digital biases into what is a democratic web. Is it time for the role of telecom operators to be scrutinised again? Perhaps policy makers should focus more on how companies managing data will from here on, try to orchestrate or manipulate what is watched, heard or read. After all, they own the pipe. Here are some points to consider vis a vis telcos.

Realising that data is the future of their business, telcos are going beyond data plans to find a way to make money off it. Airtel Zero is a part of the same thinking, and entering into an arrangement with app developers like Flipkart would have ensured their revenue source. One is still not clear whether companies like Flipkart or other app developers in the same space would make money or if they were willing to do anything it takes by using investor funds and inflated valuation to acquire customers. Many may see this as a short term, selfish and myopic move both on behalf of Airtel and Flipkart.

While everyone now seems to be taking the moral high ground of supporting net neutrality, the debate now needs to shift towards commercial models in the backdrop of a data hungry consumer. While on the one hand no telco can even dare to block off app developers who cannot afford to pay, like Airtel Zero would have turned out to be, on the other hand, the telcos need to introspect whether they are going to put the horse before the cart or vice versa i.e. should they make more money off customers through a specific app or push hard to allow the whole world of consumers to have free access to every app without discrimination. Clearly the pressure to look for a 'value proposition' in the data-led world means we may not have seen the last of such such plans.

Media caught napping?

The Net Neutrality debate also caused media houses that engaged with Internet.org to suddenly withdraw from the tie-up they entered with Facebook for reportedly spreading the web to underprivileged sections of society. On the one hand, we had Mark Zuckerberg saying that net neutrality and universal connectivity can and must coexist. On the other hand, almost all leading media houses which were part of Internet.org seem to have suddenly woken up to the fact that their arrangement violated the free web principle in the backdrop of the Airtel Zero-Flipkart controversy. So what changed? Mr Zuckerberg's letter makes a lot of sense when you consider how far internet penetration has to go in India and that any effort to push it will help, but what are the riders, who are the partners and how do they benefit while they ride free, are some of the questions one must ask.

Social media wins

In less than 12 months, the power of social media has seen major success on a national scale. One year ago, it was the youth interest in politics that dominated the elections. Now, Net Neutrality seems to have united people across Twitter, Facebook and blogger sites. What has been tremendously established is how social media can drive or alter decisions. Perhaps Indian policy makers now, even more so than ever before, need to consider its online constituency as a real one.