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Comment by pavanky | Hacker News Reader

> The poor in India etc will almost surely have the option of giving up their free plan and paying for the Internet, and then Facebook will have just served as a stepping stone and aid along the way to 'full' Internet access.

This is not going to happen the way the Indian telecoms are screwing up Net Neutrality. Internet.org is only part of the problem. Indian telecoms want to charge extra for OTT (over the top) services. This includes many internet messaging (ex: whatsapp) and VOIP (ex: skype) services. Internet.org sets a bad precedent where the telecoms can come up with various packages that are "free" while charging exorbitant amounts of money for the rest of the internet.

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Usually I'm very pro internet.org with the basis for my response being "people who can't afford internet don't care about your politics, why should we get to deprive them of useful services based on a message only we care about." And I still feel thats true.

But your response is definitely the best argument against it I've seen.

If you look up Internet.org free tier screenshots from users all the pics are blurred out with a sales pitch from the carrier to "upgrade to premium Facebook to see this"

I'm all for keeping the net neutral. But let me play the devil's advocate here: When the telecoms have paid for the spectrum (there was an auction for the spectrum), how can you dictate what services they should charge for and what services they shouldn't charge for ? The spectrum is a public resource, but when the telecoms have paid for it, aren't they entitled to charge for the services they provide ?

Spectrum wasn't sold to them, it was licensed. A list of specific services they are allowed to provide is in the license agreement. Spectrum remains public property leased out for a specific purpose, and not private property; the government is well within its rights to decide what the spectrum should, and should not, be used for.

They knew the license terms when they bid for the spectrum. One of the approved uses is providing internet service, and the license agreement (UASL) specifically says that this entails providing access to all legal websites and services on the internet.

While the intent is clear, it isn't as detailed as net neutrality legislation in other countries — which is why campaigners want new regulations or legislation with similar clarity as laws in Brazil, Chile or the FCC's rules.

The telecoms are still going to provide the internet services. But they want to provide free packages for some of the services. They have the license and they can manage to provide access to some of the sites for free. Of course the access is not really free, just that the party that is receiving the traffic (Flipkart) and the ISP have an arrangement to bear the costs rather than charging the visitor. Whoever wants to access the internet, can still do so by paying for it, as they do now. Are we being fair when we say that we want to call that illegal ? Laws are based on the idea of fairness. We should first debate the fairness of a practice before we push for it to be legislated.

Zero rating is antithetical to the open internet. It causes harm and should be banned. There is no fairness to be debated.

since they are a utility, they can charge all they want as long as they don't discriminate, they can decide to charge all data at 1000Rs/MB. Even a 1800 kind of service is also ok, wherein service provider will pay for the data and not end user, as long as any business can join in.

Now the question is why should some business be treated as utility, it is because they control access to limited natural resource, which somewhat prevents free competition

When the telecoms have paid for the spectrum, why can't they dictate what phone numbers you can call?

In my country there are phone plans where you specify few phone numbers (usually your wife or children) and have very low tariffs for calling those numbers.

To be sure, there are numbers that are toll free and the receiving party is charged for calling, much like the arrangement that Indian telecoms are proposing to get into with e-com sites like Flipkart. Toll-free numbers can be seen as incentives to call a particular number more than others. Aren't they violating the "Telephony Neutrality" principle ?

Yes, I am aware of toll free numbers and the like. The phone number analogy is not quite suitable as a counterargument against internet.org, but it was not meant to be one either. It was more a conter to the devil's advocate line of questions.

The tariff and regulatory structure of telephony is different from internet access. "Telephony Neutrality" basically says that you can call anybody you like as long as you can afford it and you are free to receive phone calls from anybody.

Internet.org is thus more like: "you can call these toll free numbers, but you cannot receive calls from anybody we haven't preapproved".

they do, long distance are charged differently then local and same network calls, and 1800 reverse the paying party. 100, 101, 191 are free. 5* sms cost extra. You can get a plan which frees few nos. or get unlimited call to 1 no.

I addressed these issues in a sibling comment, but the main gist of the argument is that in telephony within tarrif groups there is no discrimination between different numbers.

There is nothing magical about the IP address of internet.org that makes packets to and from it special. Hence zerorating should be applied to either all IP addresses or none.

So your complaint is that this will encourage more ISPs to offer free internet packages? Funny, I would have called that the best possible outcome.

I don't see anything in the parent comment indicating that there will be any free internet packages.

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