WISH YOU ALL A HAPPY NEW YEAR 2016 !
The debate around Internet.org and the #Netneutrality is very interesting and how startup founders and ordinary citizens are engaging is very fascinating. Proud of you young India for your activism!
As per an article published on NDTV titled “IIT Faculty, Startup India vs. Zukerburg’s Free Basics”,Facebook says that Free Basics (the main thrust of Internet.org) is aimed at bringing free Internet to millions of poor mobile phone users in rural areas. The package offers free news, health, and job articles from partners along with a text-only version of Facebook.
Even TRAI or the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India is actively looking into this from a regulatory point of view to see that the Internet has fair access for all and content/app. developers have equal opportunity/access to deploy their products & services.
Netneutrality activists say Zuckerberg’s plan violates the principle that the whole Internet should be available to all and unrestricted by any one company. They see it as a Trojan horse being used by Facebook to control access to the Internet.
Content provided by Free Basics is available free to mobile phone users, but they have to pay for other content – described by critics as “differential pricing” which results in a “tiered Internet” instead of providing a level playing field that allows innovation and startups to compete with established corporations.
So what is the truth?
The bottom line seems to be that some content access and apps seem to be bundled with Free basics on the Facebook branded phone which will be available free to folks in rural India.
In an editorial for the Times of India earlier this week, Zuckerberg wrote, “Instead of wanting to give people free access to basic Internet services, critics of the programme continues to spread false claims – even if that means leaving behind a billion people.”
As reported by The New York Times this week, on India, “the program offers free Web searches using Microsoft’s Bing service but Google searches incur a charge.”
So it appears that most of the content that is already freely accessible on the Internet will be available free to the Free Basics service patrons including the text version of their app. So far it seems to be fair. The quarrel seems to be for the app developers (startups and established ones like PayTM, FlipKart and others) who may lose out to these patrons because the Facebook branded phones may not accept downloading their apps. Its a legitimate concern.
As this is being framed as a #Netneutrality debate, it should probably be understood in the
context of what Facebook and their carrier cohorts like Reliance and Airtel can do to create a monopoly.
Here are a couple things:
1. They (Facebook) could ban free downloads of outside apps. to their “branded” phones
2. The carriers could prioritize Facebook traffic from Free basics (Facebook) phones on their data networks through available & new QoS (Quality of Service) mechanisms.
3. Once they acquire critical market share among the rural areas, Facebook could charge app developers to deploy or release their apps like the equivalent of Google Play Store (Android) or Apple Store (iPhone).
So as long as Facebook promises this kind of openness for app developers and the carriers don’t make preferential treatment to Facebook traffic, #Netneutrality can be maintained. In the absence of this, which is very much possible depending on how Facebook plans to make revenue in this market, TRAI or any other Internet regulatory authority needs to be able to monitor this for any violations.
To help TRAI, there needs to be a way to monitor this traffic!
Maybe this could be good “startup” idea to develop technology similar to “network security monitoring” (deep packet inspection) of malicious traffic on the Internet. But this idea is dependent on knowledge of vendor networks (network equipment gear) that carry most of the traffic on the Internet today.
Any takers?
It will be unfair to ban Facebook or their Indian carrier partners to provide this service subject to they NOT violating their promise in letter and spirit!
Of course as we say here in America, TRUST but VERIFY!
