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

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.

Comments

Alternate title

[stoborrobots]

Alternate title: "India insists on network neutrality"

Re:Alternate title

[Anonymous Coward]

No they insist on equal pricing. They don't care if the provider is net neutral, just that they don't compete with them.

What they actually insists on (for those not RTFA) is the second link in the summary -- pricing must be "content agnostic". If you offer Internet connectivity you can't price data traffic going to Facebook lower than what you price data traffic going to YouTube or whatever. That is indeed a core net neutrality issue, because network providers could otherwise easily use differentiated pricing and zero-rating as an unfair advantage for some internet services over others. A few bundling deals and the market would be locked in for anyone wanting to challenge the established Internet services.

Re:Alternate title

[houghi]

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.

On paper, this is a good decision

[NotDrWho]

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?

Re:On paper, this is a good decision

[avandesande]

Or maybe it's about a foreign entity putting a bunch of small local providers out of business and then changing their mind about the service being free. I think it is called 'predatory pricing'.

Re:On paper, this is a good decision

[angel'o'sphere]

Why should the government be in the business of protecting local food sellers
E.g. because they are tax payers?
Or when they end on the street in poverty they become bandits? (Ah, yes that is illegal, let the cops and courts deal with that)

American companies try to ruin local food farming and selling all over the world (and other farming, like for cotton). As the local business often is not strong enough to survive, obviously governments need to introduce laws if they want local companies to survive.

Luckily for you, you live in a country where the big companies ruling the world have their origin. Luckily for you you seem not to need laws that protect you. Yet.

Re:On paper, this is a good decision

[jrumney]

Why should the government be in the business of protecting local food sellers (and telling me what I can and can't eat)?

Because the government is the one who gets to pick up the tab when your local food industry has been destroyed by the multinational companies that are dumping their product, and for the health effects (even if the government doesn't pay directly for health, they pay indirectly through the effect poor health has on the economy). The government is the one who gets to pick up the tab when the local internet industry is destroyed because they don't fit into Facebook's internet.org ecosystem so there is no longer a market for their services, and for the long-term effect on education of being able to access only a limited sandbox instead of the Internet.

Why is it called differential pricing?

[MobyDisk]

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?

Re:Why is it called differential pricing?

[gstoddart]

As I understand it, differential pricing is "this data will be free for you, whereas accessing this stuff will cost you" -- because you're getting a cut from the revenue of the first set of data.

Basically people would be pushed to preferentially use Facebook for everything, while being penalized for using anything else.

So, we'll give you all the Facebook you can handle, but go to YouTube and we'll charge you more.

It boils down to differential pricing when data from one source is made to artificially cost less than data coming from another source.

Corruption

[BitZtream]

Seriously ... one of the most corrupt countries on the planet puts into effect a law to enforce net neutrality and prevent subversion ...

And we (USA) can't ... W ... T ... F ...

Re:Corruption

[dell623]

You can know by wanting to know - this isn't China we are discussing.

There was a massive public campaign: https://www.savetheinternet.in...

The founders of hundreds of Indian startups signed a letter calling for net neutrality.

The regulatory authority TRAI received 2.4 million public submissions, mostly favouring net neutrality.

India is a corrupt country but don't get so hung up on stereotypes.

Also, unlike China, Facebook is the dominant social network in India as much as it is everywhere else. There are no local alternatives - most internet users would be comfortable enough with English to just use Facebook and multi language support takes care of the rest. What's app is huge as you would expect. So there is no question of keeping Facebook out. Just the Zuckernet - India doesn't want the Zuckernet.

I cannot believe an audience like Slashdot does not get the implications of something like this. Imagine if the internet had been considered too expensive for poorer countries and the only 'internet' that reached poorer countries was a curated government managed internet in the guise of making it cheap. Why does India need the real internet at all, they can't afford it anyway, just like they shouldn't be flying rockets and shit. Let's switch the whole country to free Zuckernet.

Re:Corruption at every level

[danbob999]

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.

This is a good decision. period.

[dell623]

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.