Moving Towards An Effective Net Neutrality Regime In India

The innocuously titled issue of network neutrality (net neutrality) has rapidly polarized the ongoing debate on the regulation of the Internet, in India as well as globally. While the overwhelming public interest garnered by net neutrality is unsurprising, given the growing recognition of the significance of the Internet, there appears to be some degree of ambiguity as to the implementation of the principle, and the effects which would follow such implementation.

Though India has no set net neutrality regulations in place as yet, the debate on fixing a net neutrality policy has been set in motion by the Telecom and Regulatory Authority of India's (TRAI) somewhat obscurely titled Consultation Paper on the issue (the TRAI Paper)¹ and the Department of Telecommunications (DOT) recent recommendations for implementing net neutrality in India (DOT Report).² Among other things, both these documents consider the possibility of agreements between Internet Service Providers (I