Trai to take a decision on differential pricing soon

Amid a global debate over the issue of net neutrality, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India said it might soon take a decision on the differential pricing for data services. “A few days back, we had released a consultation paper on the differential pricing for data services. We may take a decision in this regard soon,” Trai secretary Sudhir Gupta told reporters on the sidelines of ‘Consumer Outreach Programme’. On Trai’s recommendation that the base price of the premium 700MHz band should be Rs. 11,485 crore, which is the highest base price of spectrum for the purpose of auction, he said, “In our opinion this price of spectrum is not high. You have to look at it from the perspective of 20 years and not one year.” He also said it cannot be predicted that there would be no buyers at this price and added that predictions of the analysts were off the mark in the earlier four auctions too. In a previous report , we’ve seen how differential pricing means, different prices for different content aka apps, which violates net neutrality. So, differential pricing and net neutrality don’t go hand-in-hand. And, we can say the same about Free Basics or any other similar platform. Differential pricing won’t just change the way we’ve always used Internet, but blatantly unfair and discriminating. With input from Reuters