India’s telecom regulator has released a pre-consultation paper seeking to define net neutrality. The paper released by the Telecommunication Regulatory Authority of India poses six questions for debate to stakeholders, which are aimed at putting into place an overall framework for internet usage in India. "This pre-consultation paper is an attempt to identify the relevant issues in these areas, which will help Trai in formulating its views on the way forward for policy or regulatory intervention," the regulator said.

The paper also deals with issues such as traffic management and restricted internet access. Trai said that Telcom Service Providers, or TSPs, “must treat all internet traffic on an equal basis, without regard to the type, origin, or destination of the content or the means of its transmission”. It added that TSPs must not throttle internet speed or block any application or service without taking permission from the authorities, reported The Huffington Post.

The six questions Trai asks in the paper are, as reported by The Economic Times:

  1. What should be the core principles of net neutrality?
  2. What reasonable traffic management practices should be followed by telecom companies?
  3. What should be India's policy in dealing with net neutrality?
  4. What precautions should be taken to maintain customer privacy?
  5. What precautions should be taken to ensure national security is preserved?
  6. How to define relationship between telecom companies and over-the-top players, such as apps?

In February, Trai had ruled in favour of net neutrality and said that no service provider shall offer or charge discriminatory tariff for data services on the basis of content.