Founders and top leaders of many prominent startups, including Zerodha’s Nithin Kamath and Paytm’s Vijay Shekhar Sharma, have written a joint letter to regulator TRAI in support of net neutrality, and cautioned that any move towards “over regulation” of internet services categorised as OTT services could have “discriminatory consequences”.

The letter, signed by representatives of 129 startups, calls for the Internet to be maintained as an open platform where network providers treat all content, application, and services equally, without discrimination, a PTI report stated.

This includes not putting a service at a competitive disadvantage, either by imposing additional network fees or other regulatory obligations such as licensing under a telecommunications framework, according to the letter addressed to Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) Chairman PD Vaghela.

“A particular TSP which is offering data services to the consumer does not control the internet infrastructure in its entirety. It is dependent on several other networks to facilitate this task. Thus, allowing a TSP which is at one edge of the internet to charge differentially for data that it does not alone process, could compromise the entire architecture of the internet itself.

“Were other TSPs across multiple tiers allowed to do this, then the openness of internet as we know, would be altered,” the letter said.

At another place, the letter stressed that “allowing price differentiation based on the type of content being accessed on the Internet, would militate against the very basis on which the internet has developed and transformed the way we connect with one another”.

The letter, signed by the likes of  Razorpay’s Harshil Mathur and Shashank Kumar, IndiaMART’s Dinesh Agarwal, Rapido’s Rishikesh SR, amongst others, added: “If anything, these obligations will favour large multinational conglomerates who can afford to adapt to such regulations.

“Giving TSPs (telecom service providers) the key to be able to control these factors will very likely impact the thriving Indian start-up ecosystem.”