|
Parliamentary Standing Committee on Communications and Information Technology Chairman Nishikant Dubey on Monday said the panel will call major digital and social media platforms, including Meta Platforms, X, Google and Amazon, as part of its ongoing examination into net neutrality and equal internet access, asserting that all 140 crore internet users in the country must enjoy equal rights under consumer protection laws.
Speaking with ANI after the Parliamentary panel's meeting held on May 26, Dubey said the committee was examining whether telecom operators and digital platforms were creating preferential access for certain categories of users, including post-paid subscribers and paying customers on online platforms. "We have to look after 140 crore people. All of them should get equal rights. Right of Equality. This is decided by the Constitution. Is net neutrality important? Net neutrality is important. All the consumers, all the 140 crore people who use the internet, they should get equal rights under Consumer Protection Rights," Dubey said. The Parliamentary panel meeting agenda included a briefing by the Department of Telecommunications and the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) on "Quality of Service Standards and Consumer Protection in Telecom Sector", with a special focus on net neutrality. Dubey said the committee had not yet arrived at any conclusion and that further deliberations would continue in the coming weeks. "There is a network. The government decides the licensing conditions of the network...Maximum people are prepaid, 90 per cent of the consumers are prepaid, 10 per cent of the consumers are post-paid, some companies want to give more convenience to the post-paid, They want to give less to the prepaid and we have come to understand that, we have not concluded it yet," he said. According to sources, members of the panel raised concerns over "network slicing" after a private telecom operator recently introduced the feature for post-paid users, prompting questions on whether differentiated network access could violate the principle of non-discriminatory internet usage. TRAI is expected to revert to the committee with further details on the issue. Dubey also indicated that the panel's scrutiny would extend beyond telecom operators to large technology and social media companies that provide differentiated services based on paid subscriptions or premium access models. "Besides this, all the service providers, from Google to Amazon, and all the big companies, from Facebook to X, they come to know about the facilities. For example, if you give some money to 'X', you get more freedom to write, and others get less freedom. We have called all of them," he said. The panel chairman described the issue as a matter of consumer rights and constitutional equality, saying the committee was deeply concerned about maintaining neutrality and fairness in internet access. The Parliamentary committee is expected to hold two to three more sittings before finalising its observations on net neutrality, telecom quality of service standards and consumer protection issues. (ANI)
|
