“No, the TSPs (telecom service providers) should not be allowed to have differential pricing for data usage for accessing different websites, applications or platforms”, IAMAI said in its comment over Trai’s “Consultation Paper on Differential Pricing for Data Services”.
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“This isn’t about Facebook’s commercial interests – there aren’t even any ads in the version of Facebook in Free Basics”, he said.
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While Free Basics is now on ice in Egypt and India, the program could make a comeback after regulators in each country have a chance to examine it. While Free Basics toes the line with net neutrality, it is hard to argue the benefits of bringing more people to the modern age, making the issue a worthwhile discussion for each nation in the program.
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The group of executives in its letter said that differential pricing for access to Internet would lead to just a few players such as Facebook with the Free Basic platform playing the role of gatekeepers.
Launched previous year in Zambia, Free Basics, earlier known as internet.org, has run in to trouble elsewhere on grounds that it infringes the principle of net neutrality.
Social media websites such as Facebook played a key organising role in Egypt’s 2011 uprising. The move came after one regulator requested an investigation into Free Basics and whether it could threaten the future of net neutrality in India.
He, however, did not elaborate if the people did not reply to Trai, the comments on Free Basics would be termed invalid.
A week after Indian regulators halted the company’s Free Basics program, which provides free access to select online services by partnering with local telecoms, the Associated Press reported that the program has also been halted in Egypt.
The Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) also voiced its opinion on Wednesday and said the differential pricing violates principles of net neutrality.
Zuckerberg says “certain basic services” are important for people’s well being in all societies, we have collections of free books in libraries, free basic healthcare.
“There is no reason to create a digital divide by offering a walled garden of limited services in the name of providing access to the poor”, they wrote. The Free Software Movement of India, a coalition of free software movements operating in different parts of India, has undertaken its own campaign against Free Basics.
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A debate on net neutrality stirred across the country after Bharti Airtel Ltd, the country’s biggest mobile-phone operator, made a decision to charge separately for Internet-based calls but withdrew it later after people protested.
