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India Blocks Facebook's Free Basics Internet Service (thestack.com)

Posted by timothy on from the rich-and-poor-equally-free-to-buy-bread dept.

An anonymous reader writes: India's leading telecom regulator, TRAI (Telecom Regulatory Authority of India), has today voted against differential pricing, ruling with immediate effect that all data prices must be equal, and that companies cannot offer cheaper rates than others for certain content. The call is a significant blow to Facebook's Free Basics (previously Internet.org) initiative and Airtel Zero – projects which work to make internet access more accessible by providing a free range of "basic" services. The watchdog confirmed that providers would no longer be able to charge for data based on discriminatory tariffs but instead that pricing must be "content agnostic." It added that fines of Rs. 50,000 – 50 Lakh would be enforced should the regulations be violated.

9 of 137 comments (clear)

  1. Alternate title by stoborrobots · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Alternate title: "India insists on network neutrality"

    --
    "Go to CNN [for a] spell-checked, fact-checked summary" -- CmdrTaco
    1. Re:Alternate title by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Or another:
      India still on the path to socialism/communism.

      Or another:
      Morons on Slashdot still think Capitalism and free markets work as promised.

    2. Re:Alternate title by houghi · · Score: 4, Insightful

      1) This is not directed at the poor. This is directed at others who are already able to pay. This has been posted and explained several times by people living in the country.
      2) The downside is that it is not a complete free Internet service. Other sited are blocked. They are not a provider.

      As some sites are blocked, there is no net neutrality. Now if they were to open everything and become a true free provider (with all the rules that come with it) that would be something else. This is not about what price they charge; but by what rules they play and they do not play by the provder rules, yet they clai, they are.

      A rose by any other name is still a rose. Calling a tulip a rose does not make it a rose.

      --
      Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
    3. Re:Alternate title by jellomizer · · Score: 2, Insightful

      So you are stating in a story that a free internet meant to be given to the poor, from a For Profit Company, however being blocked by the government because it has interests in keeping the underclass out of power, and probably have ties with other telecom companies, to block competition because they are offer lower price as a key competitive advantage. Is showing the evils of capitalism. Where in this case free market is motivated to provide free infrastructure in order to increase revenue from services offered.

      Stop over simplifying things. Unregulated capitalism is bad, Over regulated capitalism is just as bad too. The details is important, not the political stance.

      --
      If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
  2. On paper, this is a good decision by NotDrWho · · Score: 3, Insightful

    But I can't help but wonder in practice if it won't leave a lot of poor people with no internet access at all.

    Sure, it's nice to have an even playing field. But when you're starving, do you really want the government telling McDonalds that they can't give you free food because that wouldn't be fair to Burger King?

    --
    SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
  3. Why is it called differential pricing? by MobyDisk · · Score: 3, Insightful

    voted against differential pricing, ruling with immediate effect that all data prices must be equal, and that companies cannot offer cheaper rates than others for certain content

    The decision makes sense, but the reasoning and naming is nonsensical. It is fine for data prices to be different, and it is fine for companies to offer cheaper rates than others. The issue is that they cannot offer a "partial" internet. They must offer the entire internet, or none at all. This would make more sense to be called "differential content."

    Any vision into the naming here? It seems like it sends the wrong message. Or maybe this is a translation problem?

    1. Re: Why is it called differential pricing? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Again, this is not the case. Simply look at other places where FB is providing this service and you'll see its access to most of the internet for free. If you want FB services you can certainly pay to get premium services but you can also ignore FB and still have very reasonable and helpful access to pretty much the rest of the net.

      It's not "pretty much the rest of the web". Apart from banning high-bandwidth traffic such as videos (which might be understandable on cost grounds) they also ban JS and HTTPS other than Facebook and sites they select. This means you can't provide an alternative social media platform. Nor can you provide any sort of secure service such as shopping or messaging without their collaboration.

      Essentially, FB are using cash from overseas to subsidize this service and therefore are making it commercially impossible to set up a financially self-sustaining internet access business that covers the section of India's huge population who haven't yet reached middle-class income levels. Any who wants to set up an internet business targeting this population will therefore have to go through FB's platform on terms FB imposes. Once India's e-commerce establishes itself using FB's platform it will be very difficult to change - even if FB stops offering this particular free internet deal or if more people can afford to pay for full internet access.

  4. Re:Corruption at every level by danbob999 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    This is Net Neutrality, like it or not.
    They are not forbidden to offer Internet for free. If they want to give 200MB/month to everyone for free, it's fine. People will be free to use it for whatever they want however, not just Facebook. There is no technical reason why an ISP could offer free Facebook but not a small, neutral, amount of data.

  5. This is a good decision. period. by dell623 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    That is the kind of condescending attitude that people like Mark Zuckerberg have that really pisses off people know who anything about internet access in India. That whole 'let them eat stale bread for free' thing.

    The choice between Zuckerberg curated internet and no internet is a made up, false dichotomy. Whatever else you may say or hate about Google, I much much prefer their philosophy of fast internet is good for Google and therefore they focus on improving access to ALL of the internet.

    For anyone who has been to a train station in India for example, this is an absolute godsend: http://indianexpress.com/artic...

    And a huge number of poorer Indians use trains - we are talking millions of people every day if they cover the 100 largest stations with adequate bandwidth.

    The biggest barrier to internet access in India is not just the cost. And the reason for the high cost is not just the fact that people are poor - the licensing regime and restricted spectrum are far bigger factors than price.

    This has been big news in India and most opinion was strongly against Facebook. You can read some of the arguments here: http://blogs.timesofindia.indi...

    Being poor or poorer doesn't universally bestow some sort of nobility or sense of purpose or a special hunger for knowledge. Most people in the third world use the internet for what the developed world does - games and pointless social media and sharing garbage. That is exactly what the free 'tablets' that a misguided minister subsidized in India a few years ago were mostly used for.

    Provide internet access in public spaces, and in schools and universities Mr. Zuckerberg if you really give a shit.