What Net Neutrality is and what it isn’t

The past few months have seen a huge wave of noise from every netizen out there going Gaga over the concept of “Net Neutrality” and how differential pricing of data services by ISP’s and mobile service providers in India is taking a turn for the worse. Its like a new Nirbhaya wave, only now, no one actually seems to make sense of what the heck is going on and is just throwing flak in all possible directions, much akin to a primate flinging feces in a spirited effort at “Strutting their Stuff”

Yes. I believe in Net Neutrality. The basic concept that ensures that every guy can leverage the free world as it is, connected by an immense network of under-sea cables and still come up with a service that is as kick-ass as one that may be launched by giants like Facebook or Microsoft. It was what facilitated the birth of the immense power of the cloud and now, with Azure, Amazon and Heroku all vying for a higher market share, the world has suddenly become all the more a level playing field. The little guy has indeed been heard.

The very word Net Neutrality entered into the american vocabulary with the advent of differential treatment of a major entertainment service provider’s content by a certain ISP in certain states of the United States. The matter is still Sub-Judice and hence my discretion. Closer home, in India, Net-Neutrality began with differential pricing as evolved by Airtel, a leading service provider in the mobile market which announced a hiked, differential pricing for availing Skype Services, when compared to normal data rates. This was something new. Something that had not been previously encountered.

But unexpectedly, the other operators didn’t follow suit, with majority of the operators going ahead and actually, generally increasing the pricing of data, rather than adopting differential pricing. This was justified as an adjustment for inflation, a means of facilitating a compromise to the sky-rocketing value of the american dollar.

The advent of Airtel Zero was what sparked the amazing wave of amusement from netizens. A group of people that were reportedly silent when they were charged more for a service, suddenly erupted like a volcano, when a service was given for free. Uncanny isn’t it ?

Lets take some examples. I’ve been a long standing subscriber to Aircel’s Cellular network. To this day, Aircel lets you browse on Wikipedia for free. Why isn’t anyone rising up in arms over this ? Because Wikipedia is different ? How different is it from a service provider choosing not to charge for a service that you may or may not choose to use ? No one is forcing you.

Coming to the furor over Facebook’s Internet.org campaign, I have only one thing to say. There is nothing more misunderstood than the effort that internet.org is trying to put in, to make the internet as accessible to you, sitting, sipping a Starbucks coffee at 300 Bucks a cup on your iPad in a mall in Bandra, as it is trying to get news of the world, to a dilapidated second hand first generation android phone owning guy sitting in a regular tea shop drinking Chai out of a glass cup. The differences in this country are amazing. Truly.

The internet is made for everyone and it deserves everyone’s representation and everyone’s voice in it. Not only those that are equipped with sufficient technological knowledge or prowess as those sending an email to TRAI, which only goes to prove the amazing inequality at the representation that the entire campaign is composed of. It is so immensely skewed that it fails to represent the entire picture so amazingly.

Get out of your wifi-enabled homes and get to the farms in the deep south, where every farmer looks up at the sky waiting for the rain that may or may not happen, which may or may not fuel his body as well as that of his family the day after. Look into his eyes and the eyes of his children and then look at yourself in the mirror.

Ideal competition can exist if and only if there is a field for the competing sides to actually compete on. Please do not fuel the demolition of the future of a kid reading free Wikipedia on a connection. Do not hurt the chances of every person on the plant getting online. It doesn't matter how, or why. Let them get online first.

The internet isn’t your toy to strut. Its a massive media that was built for everyone by everyone and it needs to have everyone on it.