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Facebook's Free Basics App Has Been Temporarily Banned in India (fastcompany.com)
An anonymous reader writes that Facebook's plan to provide Indians with free access to a number of chosen internet services has run into some big trouble. FC reports: "Indian telecom regulators have reportedly halted Facebook's "Free Basics" mobile Internet service, formerly known as Internet.org, over net neutrality concerns. The controversial program allows mobile customers free access to a limited set of Internet services, including certain online shopping, employment and health sites, Wikipedia and, naturally, Facebook itself. While Facebook has said the program offers limited Internet access to more than 1 billion people, those who might otherwise have none, it's come under fire from net neutrality activists and others in the industry who say it limits users to a walled garden populated solely by Facebook's partners.
I'm sorry, this is just not true. Just to set some context, I'm an indian, currently living in India.
The plan has *no* provision to provide internet by making it possible for very poor people to access devices with internet. So they are right of the table. Thus it gets targeted to people who already have a smart/feature phone which can access internet. This by itself is very broad reach of population in India (somewhat around 50% of 1.2 billion ppl). So essentially this service is targeted towards people who can afford such a phone (Rs 3000 - Rs 5000 - Rs12000) range where a further mobile plan would cost around Rs100 for 300MB. Who can afford it but the further Rs 100 - Rs 300 a month for the internet plan pinches just a bit. In essence, college students. This can be further noted in the adverts for such plans which are obviously youth targeted (*1).
It's not about getting internet to the poor who can't afford it. It's about capturing the youth market by making it more expensive to get on actual internet where competing services (to facebook for example) can breed. Thus locking them in to whatever is already on 'Free Basics'.
* 1 -> http://www.rcom.co.in/Rcom/personal/internet/internet-org.html