India bans discriminatory pricing based on source/destination/app/content
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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
#2Probably the most progressive regulation among anywhere in the world.
Enforcement of these #NetNeutrality principles is the literal granting of the Liberties and Equalities of opportunities, granted to individuals and as such this is a landmark order that will have far reaching repercussions.
Worth noting how this played out. A bunch of folks on the internet, organised themselves and campaigned to stop a $300B market cap corporation and a bunch of telecoms with strong lobbying capabilities. Who would have thought they would win? The situation is worth a Harvard case study or a Nate Silver book.
The future of influencing policy making is right here; and you ain't seen anything yet! Save The Internet team clearly seems to understand the virality of social networks better than Facebook does!
Re: India bans discriminatory pricing based on source/destination/app/content
#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, giving them the ability to play king-makers and gate-keepers. Citizens should be vigilant, as always, and should consider participating in this process in the future. SaveTheInternet opposes any form of licensing of Internet Services. This includes VoIP.
So even though discriminatory pricing is not allowed, operators can still slow/speed down/up apps and websites. Seems to me a key aspect of net neutrality has not been upheld.
For eg, what if an ISP decides to "slow down" Netflix to 0.1 kbps? I believe this is a wholly unsatisfactory outcome of the entire national debate over the last several months.
Re: India bans discriminatory pricing based on source/destination/app/content
#4>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.
Re: India bans discriminatory pricing based on source/destination/app/content
#5Could Facebook not simply have outmanoeuvred the problem here by providing free access to the wider web, perhaps in a rolling fashion? Does Facebook have any real 'native' competition in India?
Re: India bans discriminatory pricing based on source/destination/app/content
#6Could Facebook not simply have outmanoeuvred the problem here by providing free access to the wider web, perhaps in a rolling fashion? Does Facebook have any real 'native' competition in India?
Aircel provide a fully-free low-speed internet in some regions.
Re: India bans discriminatory pricing based on source/destination/app/content
#7Could Facebook not simply have outmanoeuvred the problem here by providing free access to the wider web, perhaps in a rolling fashion? Does Facebook have any real 'native' competition in India?
If their motive were genuinely connectivity, as they advertised it, they can still do it. #EqualRating is allowed, so are charitable initiatives such as Free Data to everyone.
But what do they really want? The next billion internet users hooked onto their platform. That's what they paid Whatsapp a whooping $19B for.
I can't presume to know for sure. We'll both see what will they do of their Freebasics program now.
Re: India bans discriminatory pricing based on source/destination/app/content
#8Take that, free market!
Re: India bans discriminatory pricing based on source/destination/app/content
#9Re: India bans discriminatory pricing based on source/destination/app/content
#10Could Facebook not simply have outmanoeuvred the problem here by providing free access to the wider web, perhaps in a rolling fashion? Does Facebook have any real 'native' competition in India?
Zuckerberg said it himself: without the amazing monopolistic properties of the system as proposed, providing free access to everything would not be economically viable. Of course it wouldn't be economically viable, how could it be?