Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), on Wednesday released its consultation paper on net neutrality. In March 2016, the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) had sought TRAI’s recommendations on issue relating to net neutrality. In views of the complexity of the subject, the Authority decided to undertake a two stage consultation process on Net Neutrality.

The first stage, of pre-consultation, was an attempt to identify the relevant issues in all the areas on which the DoT had sought TRAI’s recommendations, for which a pre-consultation paper was released in May 2016.

“The present consultation paper is accordingly being issued in continuation to the “Pre-Consultation Paper on Net Neutrality”. In view of the complexity of the subject of NN, the Authority decided to undertake a two-stage consultation process. The first stage, of pre-consultation, was an attempt to identify the relevant issues in all the areas on which the DoT had sought TRAI’s recommendations. In this next stage, the Authority has considered all the relevant issues identified during the pre-consultation process and the preliminary inputs gathered from stakeholders on those issues. The purpose of this second stage of consultation is to proceed towards the formulation of final views on policy or regulatory interventions, where required, on the subject of NN.” Sated in the Consultation paper released yesterday.

Written comments on the issues raised in the consultation paper are invited from the stakeholders by the 15th of February, 2017 and counter comments, if any, by the 28th February, 2017.

For full text of consultation paper - Click Here