Nepal Telecom Authority to Define Net Neutrality Policy

The government of Nepal is working to define a Net Neutrality policy for Nepal. According to the Nepal Telecommunications Authority (NTA), a draft has already been prepared that addresses the Net Neutrality issues the Internet Service Providers (ISPs) must comply with.

Why it matters:

• Net Neutrality is the policy that ISP treat all web content on the internet equally. IT Experts had raised the issue of net neutrality in Nepal and stressed on the need for a proper legal policy on net neutrality.
• This the first time Nepal government will be developing a legal policy for net neutrality. It has been a subject of debate on an international level for a long while.
• India also has their net neutrality policy in place. It was only last year that a ban was placed so that telecom companies couldn’t make different pricing strategies for data services.

The Backstory:

• Back at the beginning of 2018, NTA had said that Net Neutrality was not a pressing issue for Nepal, and decided against making any legal rules on Net Neutrality.
• However, recently NTA has decided to address this issue regarding the multiple instances of violations of Net Neutrality by some ISPs.
• NTA is consulting with the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) and other experts to finalize the legal framework.

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