Facebook’s Free Basics service has been dealt a severe blow by India’s telecommunications regulator, which ruled on Monday that telecom service providers are prohibited from charging differently for data depending on the content or the application that the user is accessing.
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The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India will levy a charge of Rs 50,000 per day if they are found to be offering or charging discriminatory tariffs for content-based data services.
India’s telecoms regulator has blocked Facebook’s Free Basics internet service as part of a ruling in favour of net neutrality. Access to the internet will be equal.
“TRAI has always supported net neutrality”.
“In its notification the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India said it would prohibit “discriminatory tariffs for data services”. An exemption at the time of public emergency has been allowed, where reduced tariff for accessing emergency services or at the time of emergency has been permitted. In the meeting held today, TRAI has made its stand clear that “no company to offer/charge discriminatory tariffs for data on basis of content”. “This is the broad point that we have highlighted in regulation”, Sharma said.
The order also comes as a victory for internet activists, who rallied around a cause called SaveTheInternet based on the argument that services like Free Basics went against the principle of net neutrality.
For those uninitiated, it began with TRAI floating a consultation paper seeking views if differential pricing should be allowed, amidst the whole net neutrality debate. It also can not offer free access to…
TRAI may review these regulations after a period of two years.
“The people who live in cities and are aggressive users of the internet said: “You can’t dictate the terms, give free internet to villagers and then tell them how to use it”, he said.
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The critics were also opposed to Airtel Zero, a platform launched by mobile operator Bharti Airtel so that app developers could offer so-called zero-rating apps with no data charges to customers after paying the operator a fee. This principle is the belief that all traffic on the internet deserves to be treated equally.
