Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

blog.savetheinternet.in

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 224 posts

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

#51

Post by anoncow »

cmadan wrote: post #4
dingo_bat wrote: post #3

>Two key aspects of the Net Neutrality consultation that remain: firstly, the proposed requirement for providers of VoIP services like Whatsapp, Viber and Skype to obtain a government licence, which would mean that telecom operators could be required to treat traffic from unlicensed VoIP providers differently from the rest, and secondly, allowing telecom operators the ability to slow down and speed up websites, givin…

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...

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

#52

Post by jiraaya »

spatulan wrote: post #48
jiraaya wrote: post #46

It is extremely dubious if someone turns up with a "Knight in shining armor" plan for saving the world. It would be safe to say that outsiders who are not a part of the "plan" do not have all the information to figure out the true motive behind these initiatives. It is also safe to say that direct or indirect monetary profit is almost always behind such initiatives. First it was monsanto exploiting farmers http://www…

I suspect a website called vactruth may not be the most impartial website around.

I agree. CNN may be? http://ireport.cnn.com/docs/DOC-1170073

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

#53

Post by cmadan »

sandGorgon wrote: post #43
cmadan wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The new regulations by TRAI does not mention anything about regulation of voice apps (or about slow/fast lanes). I think you have misinterpreted the comment by SaveTheInternet.in. What they're saying is that while differential pricing has been dealt with in accordance with NN principles, there are two more battles which are going to be fought i.e. i. Defeating the proposal to regulate voice apps ii. Ensuring that no…

I would argue that the voip issue is not a neutrality one but a national security one. The reason for obtaining a license us not financial but law enforcement oversight. I'm not justifying either way, but I don't think it has anything to do with neutrality in its economic sense

The proposal to regulate VoIP apps is before TRAI only because of lobbying by telcos who are still in denial over the world moving towards data and want to hold onto their voice call revenues.

I'm not sure what purpose licensing will serve from a law enforcement perspective. Banning VoIP apps that refuse to apply for a license will be like playing whack-a-mole as people can easily add a VPN to get around it or the service can intelligently route traffic to get around the ban.

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

#54

Post by jasonkester »

I'm having trouble parsing this article through all the propaganda speak. Clearly whoever wrote it is happy that a victory has been scored and that the Internet is no longer broken (and has possibly even been saved) with the help of some agency that did something important that we should know about.

But it's so thick with its own team's code language that I can't actually parse out what happened.

Anybody know what's going on?

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

#55

Post by electriclove »

Great quote on a different article covering the same story: http://money.cnn.com/2016/02/08/technology/india-facebook-fr...

----------

Mahesh Murthy, a prominent Indian venture capitalist, last year described the program as "imperialism and the East India Company all over again," carried out under the guise of "digital equality."

"What Facebook wants is our less fortunate brothers and sisters should be able to poke each other and play Candy Crush, but not be able to look up a fact on Google, or learn something on Khan Academy or sell their produce on a commodity market or even search for a job," he said.

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

#56

Post by ahallock »

retube wrote: post #24

As I understand it this effectively this stops "richer" people being charged more, which is being universally applauded as a good thing. But isn't this contrary to the whole inequality issue? Shouldn't richer people be charged more? Richer people are being charged more for state infrastructure via higher taxes - which is also generally applauded as a good thing amongst the young/liberal demographic (in fact it doesn'…

> So why is it bad for companies to charge more to certain demographics?

Because that's poor allocation of resources and discriminatory (people are being treated differently for the same products). Paying more than the market value for a product means money is not being allocated elsewhere.

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

#57

Post by scorpion032 »

jasonkester wrote: post #54

I'm having trouble parsing this article through all the propaganda speak. Clearly whoever wrote it is happy that a victory has been scored and that the Internet is no longer broken (and has possibly even been saved) with the help of some agency that did something important that we should know about. But it's so thick with its own team's code language that I can't actually parse out what happened. Anybody know what's…

I wrote up a "let's get this straight" message earlier, may be that will appeal to you more: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10932166

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

#59

Post by fkooman »

jiraaya wrote: post #52
spatulan wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect a website called vactruth may not be the most impartial website around.

I agree. CNN may be? http://ireport.cnn.com/docs/DOC-1170073

About this iReport Not verified by CNN

Doesn't meant it is not true, but I am not sure you can claim that this article is endorsed by CNN.

Post reply on HN