Founders and CEOs of nine startups, including Paytm, Zomato and GoQii, have written to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) Chairman R.S. Sharma pitching for open Internet while seeking “clear regulations” on the issue of differential pricing for data services.
Attributing success of companies such as Google and Facebook to the open nature of the Internet, the letter dated December 29 said: “The practice of differential pricing of data services results in skewing the dynamics of the Internet with telecom service providers and a few players such as Facebook with its Free Basics platform acting as gate-keepers.”
The letter, which has been co-signed by Deepinder Goyal of Zomato, Vijay Shekhar Sharma of Paytm, Sachin Bhatia of TrulyMadly, Faisal Farooqui of Mouthshut.com, Vishal Gondal of GOQii, Vineet Dwivedi of FlipClass.com, Alok Agarwal of Teesort.com and Bharat Gulia of Metis Learning, calls for regulations that prevent service providers from acting as gate-keepers offering restricted Internet services instead of open Internet.
The letter comes ahead of the December 30 deadline set by the regulator to submit comments on the consultation paper on the issue. TRAI has set the deadline of January 7 for receiving counter comments.
