In less than a week, more than 800,000 Indians have sent emails to India's telecom regulator, demanding a free and fair internet.

India’s fight for net neutrality

A battle that could decide the future of the internet in India is being fought online, between telecom users and operators.

Activists set up websites like netneutrality.in and savetheinternet.in. A video on net neutrality by a leading comedy group went viral, in much the same way that British comedian John Oliver's show on net neutrality changed the debate in the US last June, and flooded the US regulator with user support for net neutrality.
Also, some leading companies, including the media behemoth Times Group, have pulled out of Facebook's Internet.org initiative, fearing it threatens the principle of "net neutrality".
Net neutrality means service providers should treat all traffic equally. Users should be able to access all websites at the same speed and cost.
In India, the trigger was a 117-page paper published by the regulator Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), titled Consultation Paper on Regulatory Framework for Over-the-top (OTT) services.
Over-the-top services include apps like Skype or WhatsApp that ride on top of telecom operators' networks.

Backlash

Users do pay data charges to access them, but they may eat into operator revenue, such as when users make free Skype calls instead of paying the operator much more for a long-distance call.
The paper followed an attempt by leading operator Airtel last December to charge extra for internet calls. A user backlash followed, and Airtel withdrew the plan.
Activists focused on Airtel Zero, a platform that allows customers to access mobile applications for free, with the internet data charges being paid by the companies owning the application.
This is called "zero rating", and operators call it toll-free data. The data charges are paid by the app vendor.