Indian Operator Bharti Airtel wants a slice of Google and Facebook's revenue pie | Hacker News Reader

Indian Operator Bharti Airtel wants a slice of Google and Facebook's revenue pie

thenextweb.com

15 pointsdm88 comments

I wonder how they expect it to happen? Users pay their providers for network access: if they don't get network access.... they won't pay. Otherwise if they block facebook/google: by their own admission they will loose 40% of traffic: those users quite possibly going elsewhere.

I would hope that as more telecoms try to get their piece of the google/fb pie, more companies relying on the internet will come to see the benefits of supporting network neutrality.

And for anyone wondering how things fit together, check out:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peering

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/End-to-end_principle

Coincidentally, my google-managed domain was just spoofed by someone using airtel this morning (Lelia900382@foiledspun.com is not a registered user): https://gist.github.com/3169882

This is so ridiculous. Does Airtel even know how these companies have ushered in the Internet era and made people buy Broadband in the first place. Without these companies and websites, why would I need to buy broadband from these telcos?

I wonder how many users will sign up or continue to use a service that doesn't have Google/FB/etc. These companies should just call the carrier's bluff.

That wont be a problem. No one is stupid enough to block these sites. What worries me more is that they may put a limit on data that can be downloaded from these sites per user. (throttling) This is far more dangerous since this does not give a clear incentive to move to a casual web user.

This is very similar to what they did with fair usage policy. They brag about 2 mbps speed (which is pretty good considering India) but put up ridiculous limits like 3 gb or 6 gb after with speed reduces to 256 kbps. I had to move from them because of this bullshit a month back. And i don't regret my decision.

> They brag about 2 mbps speed (which is pretty good considering India)

What is an average good home Internet connection speed in India? And how do most people get connected from home? Cable DSL or wireless?

Most with desktop have a broadband and the ones with laptops have a 3g USB dongle. The tarrifs and limits on dongle are even more ridiculous. Some have 300 mb limit. Who the fuck would use 300mb per month on a 21 mbps connection? (HSPA+ has 21 mbps theoretical speed IIRC) An average speed is something around half to 1 mbps (but under limit). It is very difficult to find a true unlimited plan though. I am on one and i found it after two months of searching. it has half mbps unlimited. Others were unlimited too but their speed reduced from 2mbps to 256 kbps after 3/6/10 GB.

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