Internet Access Denied

The title gives a shockwave down your spine, right? As our life seems hell-bound without internet access. If someone asks you to pay more to get your internet, most of us will agree. Well here is something which can challenge your love for your internet connection.

Lets face it we are living in a country where autowalas can slap you and can even stab you if you fail to give them five rupees changes (chutta) and we are still expecting to get a “privilege” called equal open and free internet access for our entire life without paying something extra? The answer is yes, we are, as because we stay far from policy making decisions and lobbying among big fat companies and authoritative bodies of government.

Sorry for starting my article on a negative note like this. But the reality is going to be much more negative that the negativity of my Blah… Blah …and Blah.

We all have been to those amusement parks, right? where we need to buy a ticket just to enter the park. Then when we choose to feel really amuse by riding some “fun” rides, every time they take money. Yeah yeah, I know there are some free rides too. Oh! I forgot to mention your internet is about to turn into something like those amusement parks, where you need to pay pretty much for everything.

Now we buy an internet promo and we are tension free as we can access whatever sites and apps we want but wait, here are some telecom operators like Airtel who are about to introduces “a win-win platform for customers and marketers” where those internet companies pay that particular telecom operator to make them visible to their customers at zero data charge. Up to this, things seems like actually a winning situation for us.

But “Picture abhi baki hai mere dost” for the other companies who doesn’t or couldn’t pay those telecom operators to be visible to us. Well, then we need to pay to visit them. Means some websites will be like those free rides and for others we need to pay that also separately. Like to post pictures on Instagram you need to buy an entirely separate pack from the pack you have to buy if you want to shop from, say Snapdeal. That’s means in a nutshell if your desired app and website isn’t paying the money; you need to pay separately for each of them. It’s not only a threat to us, but it’s also a threat to those small companies who about to lose their possibility as they will be no longer visible, and by failing to announce their existence they will be extinct from the competitive market. Which will bring extra benefit to those big companies, who can have all the advantages of being visible to us?

TRAI is about to allow those telecom providers to simple block apps and websites just to extract more money from us and as well as businesses. Nope TRAI isn’t doing anything without informing us. After all, we live in the largest democracy. To take our consent TRAI has put up a consultation paper of 118 pages with 20 questions on its website which is almost invisible under the title: “Consultation Paper for Regulatory Framework for Over-the-top (OTT) Services. So, we can’t blame TRAI.

Yes, there are activists, individuals, NGOs and internet companies who have initiated “Save the internet” initiative to preserve Network Neutrality.

For those who don’t know about net neutrality, it is the principle which says that internet Service Providers and governments should treat all data on the internet equally, can’t be discriminated and all sites must be accessible. Means whenever you have an internet plan you should be allowed to visit whatever sites you want to access without any barriers. It also says that your internet provider is bound to enable you to reach every website at the same speed.

So other than praying to get some more “Hasi Khushi ke Din” of open internet access, we can actually demand for our freedom to be able to access information without any boundaries for the sake of our future as because internet isn’’t our luxury, it’s our necessity.

A lot of other countries have already adopted principles of Net Neutrality, and if you want India to be on that map too and to save open internet access Visit: www.savetheinternet.in. Type your Name and emails address and send an email answering those 20 questions to TRAI by this 24thApril. So please hurry up, and save your internet as well as your freedom.

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