How Airtel Is Trying to Bribe You Into Destroying the Open Internet

UPDATE: Flipkart, Airtel Zero's first brand partner has backed out of the deal after huge backlash from all quarters. In the meantime TRAI has received more than 1.5 lac letters already battling for #NetNeutrality

We've already explained what net neutrality is, but if you didn't get it, don't worry about it. Here's a simple explanation

You get electricity from your local electricity provider.

Does the electricity provider care if you use it for a geyser, a heater, or a vibrator? Nope. He is therefore ¡®neutral¡¯ to how you use it.
What if your electricity provider provided cheaper electricity only for the vibrator?

And if he felt like it, he could make it expensive for you to use electricity for the geyser.

That does sound evil, doesn¡¯t it? That¡¯s exactly what Indian telecom companies want to do with the broadband they offer you on mobile devices.

Specifically Airtel

igyaan

Airtel Zero will give users free access to certain mobile apps. The makers of these apps will have to sign up with Airtel, and probably pay them a fee for this preferential treatment so that they aren¡¯t killed off by competitors in the Android/Windows/iOS app space.

How Airtel is bribing you?

Sometime in the future, if you feel like setting up a website, you¡¯ll also need to pay Airtel or other telecom players a fee to ensure they can access the site on their phone/tablet/computer.

More importantly, it will destroy the open nature of the internet

huffpost

India is adding around 14-15 million internet users every quarter, which adds up to about 60 million users a year. Considering that a large amount of internet penetration is coming from the hinterlands and tier 2 and tier 3 regions, won¡¯t these people want to use the ¡°free¡± Internet? With popular sites like Facebook partnering with telecom companies to provide free access, these users will definitely choose the option of free access. This means you¡¯ll have to figure out which sites you can access before buying a data pack.

So, two Internets. Free and paid.

If you¡¯re signed on for this ¡®free internet¡¯, what will you see when you try and go to a "paid" site?

When a new app launches around the world, will the app makers line up outside an Indian telecom operators office to pay a fees to reach India¡¯s 200-300 million users?

Two Internets: Indian and global.

If you sign on to your favourite international porn site, you¡¯ll see nothing!
Only big internet companies, which can get the funding to pay telecom players will survive.
Flipkart, with its big billions, will be free, but, maybe, your small ecommerce startup won¡¯t be. People on the ¡®free internet¡¯ won¡¯t even be able to find you online ¨C you therefore will cease to exist!

What will student startups do?

reuters

Two Internets: one for the big funded companies, one for the rest.

Let¡¯s add this up the ways in which the internet will be divided

Free and paid.
Indian and global.
One for the big funded companies, one for the rest.

And this is just Airtel, as a telecom company, twisting the internet to its whims and fancies. Other telecom players will be inspired to mess with online services. They could do exclusive deals with some sites so they¡¯re free for an operator, while other sites are paid.

So, how many ¡®Internets¡¯ does this add up to? 26: Two Internets per telecom operator, and 13 telecom operators (including Jio).

reuters

Internet Service Providers can also choose to modify their offerings and choose the sites they want to charge for.

And you never know if the concept of unlimited Internet ¨C which lets you access all sites, will entirely disappear in India. After all, there are tens of thousands of people for whom the internet is a handful of sites.

If this distorted version of free internet takes root, you might find yourself being charged on a pay per use basis for sites outside the free Internet. Indian telecom operators have a history of manipulation of their platform.

They are already attempting to charge you for using services like Whatsapp and Viber, because they¡¯re losing money from SMS and International calls, services people are increasingly moving away from. Instead, telecom operators could charge on a pay per use basis for sites outside the free Internet. Indian telecom operators have a history of manipulation of their platform. They are already attempting to charge you for using services like Whatsapp and Viber, because they¡¯re losing money from SMS and International calls.

What can you do

TRAI is consulting with YOU, (yes, you), to with a 20 question list to find out your views on two topics:

Should there be licensing of Internet services?

Should there be non-discrimination of Internet access via telecom operators?

Send an email to TRAI's mail id advqos@trai.gov.in mentioning your support for net neutrality and against differential pricing and different speeds. Get your friends behind it too. The future of the Internet in India depends on it. The deadline is 24 April 2015, but the time is now!

With inputs from Medianama | Anupam Saxena,TOI Tech