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India bans discriminatory pricing based on source/destination/app/content

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Re: India bans discriminatory pricing based on source/destination/app/content

#201

Post by ec109685 »

anoncow wrote: post #51
cmadan wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its a step in the right direction. TRAI was only deciding on differential pricing not slow/fast lanes and currently no ISPs are implementing slow/fast lanes whereas differential pricing (i.e. free plans for Facebook, Whatsapp, their own shitty apps etc) were all over.

Definitely a step in the right direction, but there are plenty of ISPs who provide preferential treatment to Google by peering with their servers. YouTube HD videos stream without buffering on 512kbps connections. https://www.quora.com/I-am-from-Mumbai-I-have-an-Internet-co...

What does peering have to do with anything? 512kbs is 512kbs, no matter how far (within reason) you are from Google.

Re: India bans discriminatory pricing based on source/destination/app/content

#202

Post by edge17 »

bottled_poe wrote: post #187
edge17 wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with this sort of nationalism is that it's all talk. No one offers an alternative solution, so the poor continue to be poor. This attitude is what creates trade barriers and protectionist policies, and India won't solve their problems until they can compete with other nations on manufacturing and prices. The reality is that, unless you are able to keep up with modern tooling you're just going to keep fall…

Talk is an important part of progress. Implementing a half-assed solution to such a massive problem will have lasting implications for decades. I realise this goes against the modern hacker groupthink, but in this case requirements analysis is actually an important part of ensuring that billions of people don't get fucked by a US corporation.

The issue there is, in the process of not getting f--ed by a US corporation are they not getting f--ed by their own government?

There are a whole lot of people making judgements based purely on numbers, but poverty when you see it isn't just numbers. Even analytical folks like Bill Gates will admit to their stark ignorance toward what poverty actually is until having seen it first hand. There's no substitute for seeing what is actually happening.

I agree talk is important and having this dialog isn't meaningless, but there is quite a lot of pseudo-intellectualism and general disconnectedness where people with power are more concerned with the next step in their career rather than the roles of the office they're actually occupying. Or some notion that the ideas of protecting the ideas of net-neutrality in the west are some sort of modern day "white man's burden." If I needed to fix my roof today and you told you I couldn't have just a hammer and screwdriver because they can't separated from the whole toolbox, I would be heartbroken.

While openly violating net-neutrality isn't going to benefit any politician looking for votes for their next seat in public office, the reality is that net-neutrality has been violated all over the world to the tremendous benefit of the people. It's important to note that, while net-neutrality is mostly upheld in the US, the US suffers plenty of blind spots that result from the biases in general news media, social media, and reporting.

Also, to address your original point, implementing nothing will also have massive issues for decades. Your commentary falls under the same heading as the people intellectualizing the problems without having a stake in it. I don't know where you live or anything about you, but go check out rural India some time and find out what real poverty is. If you've never seen it with your own eyes, you honestly have no idea what it is.

Re: India bans discriminatory pricing based on source/destination/app/content

#203

Post by edge17 »

zenincognito wrote: post #166
edge17 wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with this sort of nationalism is that it's all talk. No one offers an alternative solution, so the poor continue to be poor. This attitude is what creates trade barriers and protectionist policies, and India won't solve their problems until they can compete with other nations on manufacturing and prices. The reality is that, unless you are able to keep up with modern tooling you're just going to keep fall…

I think for all meaningful solutions discussion and "talk" is critical. What would happen if India did not take offence to the free basics program as is ? It is crystal clear that FB was trying to muscle its power around as this meant a large demographics for them. Its a win for India. Win for the free market.

I had a good deal of insight into how this played out at the very top. Behind closed doors there's actually support in a lot of good places, but there is quite a lot of political posturing from people that have a stake in the nationalistic angles. It gets votes.

Re: India bans discriminatory pricing based on source/destination/app/content

#204

Post by toyg »

icebraining wrote: post #179
toyg wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point is that Free Basics existing would automatically remove a huge amount of incentive for other solutions appearing. Why bother building a better internet if FB already provides "the essentials" to everyone? It would wipe the market before it had a chance to develop organically as it happened elsewhere. If AOL had provided free access to its own services only we would have a very different network today.

The Internet market in India already has 300+ million users, and has been growing at a good pace. It's hardly an incipient market. And besides, before AOL there was CompuServe (and Minitel, in France), which did provide access almost exclusively to its own services.

CompuServe never had the volume and appeal FB has today. Minitel is a good reference because it is widely credited as one of the reasons France initially experienced slow internet uptake.

Re: India bans discriminatory pricing based on source/destination/app/content

#205

Post by Manishearth »

tzs wrote: post #196
Manishearth wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but tomorrow the poor will still have no Internet access That would still be the case if the verdict was the other way around. There's no evidence that Free Basics actually brought a significant number of new people on the internet (the rate of people cited as joining Free Basics is comparable to the rate of people joining the internet in general, so it didn't change anything) Note that data plans are pretty cheap…

> Note that data plans are pretty cheap in India. Cheap enough for the 60% of rural Indians who live on less than 35 Rs/day [1]? > The cost of a smartphone that can handle modern websites (especially Facebook, which breaks on old/slow phones and browsers) is more than the cost of a few year's worth of data. The vast majority of mobile phones in India are feature phones which are considerably cheaper than smartphones…

> Cheap enough for the 60% of rural Indians who live on less than 35 Rs/day [1]?

Perhaps not; but I was including only people who can afford the phone.

> The vast majority of mobile phones in India are feature phones which are considerably cheaper than smartphones

They're still ~Rs 1k (you can get cheaper ones, but I don't think even proxied sites will work well on these). Monthly data plans are less than a tenth of this.

IIRC Free Basics' Facebook still needed a good phone (higher end feature phone or a smartphone), but I can't verify that right now.

And that really brings us back to the question; how is this bringing people to the Internet? Even if Facebook worked well on a Rs 400 phone, only the Free Basics sites would work well there. This just underlines that Facebook is trying to give people Free Facebook, nothing more. People who cannot afford these phones would not become "Digital Indians" by using Free Basics, they would use Facebook and only Facebook.

Re: India bans discriminatory pricing based on source/destination/app/content

#206

Post by tn13 »

As an Indian I feel a bit sad that a few elitist managed to hijack the entire propaganda and denied access to millions of poor people.

US readers: Please note that T-Mobile Binge on and other similar services would be illegal under new TRAI guidelines in India.

Re: India bans discriminatory pricing based on source/destination/app/content

#207

Post by Manishearth »

icebraining wrote: post #178
Manishearth wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but tomorrow the poor will still have no Internet access That would still be the case if the verdict was the other way around. There's no evidence that Free Basics actually brought a significant number of new people on the internet (the rate of people cited as joining Free Basics is comparable to the rate of people joining the internet in general, so it didn't change anything) Note that data plans are pretty cheap…

That would still be the case if the verdict was the other way around. That's my point: there's nothing to celebrate here, as nothing as changed. People without full Internet access still don't have it. And so, for what is the post thanking a lot of people?

> as nothing as changed.

It didn't get worse.

> People without full Internet access still don't have it. And so, for what is the post thanking a lot of people?

You can say that about anything. That's not what they're happy about; that wasn't the only issue on the table.

Re: India bans discriminatory pricing based on source/destination/app/content

#208

Post by Golf_Hotel_Mike »

splintercell wrote: post #142
unprepare wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you are working under the assumption that without the aid of Facebook et al, India will cease developing internet connectivity? Frankly, I dont see a scenario where the third world remains unconnected through 2030, including India. There is much profit to be made connecting Billions (with a b) of people to the world economy; far too much profit that something as insignificant as running cable will forever keep the…

> So you are working under the assumption that without the aid of Facebook et al, India will cease developing internet connectivity? Nope, not at all. If I took half of all your wealth, does that mean you'd now be completely poor? No, you'd be poorer and it will harm you. Even though the poor in India will eventually get Internet (let's hope so) now they will get Internet a lot later and a lot fewer of them would it.…

>This is what government's services gets you

Why are you assuming that the only alternative to walled garden internet connectivity is government services?

Re: India bans discriminatory pricing based on source/destination/app/content

#209

Post by rohmish »

anoncow wrote: post #51
cmadan wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its a step in the right direction. TRAI was only deciding on differential pricing not slow/fast lanes and currently no ISPs are implementing slow/fast lanes whereas differential pricing (i.e. free plans for Facebook, Whatsapp, their own shitty apps etc) were all over.

Definitely a step in the right direction, but there are plenty of ISPs who provide preferential treatment to Google by peering with their servers. YouTube HD videos stream without buffering on 512kbps connections. https://www.quora.com/I-am-from-Mumbai-I-have-an-Internet-co...

You can get around constant buffering with about 1Mbps and VP9 codec. You can't ever get HD streams with no buffering at 512. If you wait at start for it to move ahead, that is a different story. The reason why you still see the spinner even on 2-3 Megs connection is that although you ISP is saying that you will get 2-3 Mbps, the connection to YouTube streaming server you are fetching content from is notat that rate. You can use the "stats for nerds" option in the yt player to get aprox speed you are getting

Re: India bans discriminatory pricing based on source/destination/app/content

#210

Post by splintercell »

Golf_Hotel_Mike wrote: post #208
splintercell wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So you are working under the assumption that without the aid of Facebook et al, India will cease developing internet connectivity? Nope, not at all. If I took half of all your wealth, does that mean you'd now be completely poor? No, you'd be poorer and it will harm you. Even though the poor in India will eventually get Internet (let's hope so) now they will get Internet a lot later and a lot fewer of them would it.…

>This is what government's services gets you Why are you assuming that the only alternative to walled garden internet connectivity is government services?

Look at the post I am responding to, it specifically talked about government providing services to the poor people.
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