Nine startup founders, including Zomato’s Deepinder Goyal, Paytm’s Vijay Shekhar Sharma, Mouthshut.com’s Faisal Farooqui and GoQii’s Vishal Gondal on Tuesday made a submission to the telecom regulator on the ongoing differential pricing paper consultation, urging it to prevent telecom providers or content providers from acting as gate-keepers offering restricted internet services instead of the open internet.
In a letter, addressed to Telecom Regulatory Authority of India Chairman R.S Sharma, the nine founders made an appeal to preserve the open nature of the internet.
“The open nature of the Internet has spurred innovation and enabled startups to flourish. The success of Google, Facebook or of several Indian startups, including those founded by the below signatories to this letter, a result of the open nature of the internet that permitted innovation without any entry barriers,“ said the better, which was drafted by the Software Freedom Law Center.
The other startup executives who addressed the letter are -Manish Vij, founder of SVG Media; Sachin Bhatia, cofounder and CEO, TrulyMadly; Vineet Dwivedi, founder and CEO, FlipClass.com; Alok Agarwal, Cofounder and Business Head at Teesort.com, and Bharat Gulia, Cofounder, Metis Learning.
“No telecom operator, in the name of any agenda whatsoever, should be al owed to split the internet,“ Paytm’s Sharma told ET.
The TRAI had earlier this month put out a consultation paper, seeking comments on the issue of differential pricing of data services, such as Facebook’s Free Basics. The paper sparked off a third round of the net neutrality debate.
“Differential pricing of data services including practices like zero rating of selected content and applications leads to a tiered Internet instead of a single open internet. This affects the ability of new players to compete in the market with the established corporations,“ the letter to TRAI added.
Source: The Economic Times
Image Courtesy : Business Standard
