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Digital India Needs These Policy Changes
https://cis-india.org/telecom/blog/business-standard-september-1-2016-shyam-ponappa-digital-india-needs-these-policy-changes
<b>Appropriate policies will increase connectivity much more than spectrum auctions.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The article originally published in the <a class="external-link" href="http://www.business-standard.com/article/opinion/shyam-ponappa-digital-india-needs-these-policy-changes-116083101392_1.html">Business Standard </a>on August 31, 2016 was mirrored in <a class="external-link" href="http://organizing-india.blogspot.in/2016/09/digital-india-needs-these-policy-changes.html">Organizing India Blogspot</a> on September 1, 2016.</p>
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<p style="text-align: justify; "><span><span>There's a "List of 10 Things" for realising India's potential that Prime Minister Narendra Modi </span><span>received as the chief minister of Gujarat from Jim O'Neill, the originator of the "BRIC" concept. Many items on that list are greatly facilitated by information and communications technology (ICT): effective governance; primary, secondary, and tertiary education; improved infrastructure; and sustainable approaches that minimise negative environmental impact. While there's agreement on ICT's importance for India, there's difficulty getting it in place to best effect. This is because policy changes are needed to make Digital India </span><span>a reality. These are the kinds of decisions that will turn the rhetoric about connectivity </span><span>into reality.</span><br /><br /><span>Some changes are relatively easy, such as enabling 60 GHz Wi-Fi, while others require more effort, as explained below. These include better terms for satellite communications, enabling broadband </span><span>on the 500-600 MHz bands, and spectrum </span><span>and network sharing.</span><br /><br /><span>In our land of such range and contradictions, so much needs improvement that everything clamours for immediate attention. Attempts to address them all together are misplaced, however, because achieving results requires goal orientation, prioritisation and systematic action, to direct a convergent investment of time, effort and capital. Also, projects must be done with the realisation that the acid test is end-to-end delivery, even if it is initially to a small segment of the market. Only then can the rest of the iceberg be addressed: consistent, ongoing operation and maintenance, and scaling up. Think of the years of effort, capital and human resources invested without that first delivery in the National Optic Fibre Network. While defining objectives appropriately and setting priorities are difficult, both are imperative.</span><br /><br /><span>A recent report on The Networked Society City Index for 2016 by Ericsson reaffirms ICT's critical role in productivity and living standards.1 The report also shows that better-developed cities are on more sustainable paths to the goal of the desirable triple bottom line (TBL) of social, economic and environmental betterment. ICT facilitates not only sustainable development of cities and often their surroundings, but extends through the networked society far beyond their geographical environs. Even our metros need attention, with Mumbai and Delhi ranking at 36 and 38 out of 41.</span></span><br /> <span><span><br /></span></span> <span><b><span>The Wireless Imperative</span></b></span></p>
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<p style="text-align: justify; "><span><span>Efforts at setting up Digital India </span><span>have to contend with the reality that most non-urban communications have to be wireless, as does a significant proportion of urban access. This is because the cost and practical difficulties in laying and maintaining fibre everywhere is far greater than building wireless networks. The accompanying chart, showing the spread of broadband </span><span>in India at the end of March 2016, illustrates this point.</span></span><br /> <span><br /></span> <span><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-yhzBSMelM-U/V9YMHFgKTAI/AAAAAAAACh0/iEZIIXhGUG8wXyDSTPWvITNxZWPmVMdjwCLcB/s1600/The%2BWireless%2BImperative-2016-03.png" style="text-align: center; "><img height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-yhzBSMelM-U/V9YMHFgKTAI/AAAAAAAACh0/iEZIIXhGUG8wXyDSTPWvITNxZWPmVMdjwCLcB/s320/The%2BWireless%2BImperative-2016-03.png" width="275" /></a><br /><br /><br /><span>The clusters are around major cities, with broadband </span><span>penetration in Delhi/NCR highest at 58.2 per cent. Except along their major connecting links, the spaces between clusters are more difficult to connect and aggregate, as habitations are not densely clustered. Also, potential revenues are generally lower in less dense areas. Such areas urgently need lower-cost wireless coverage.</span></span><br /> <span> <br /><b><span>Policy Changes Required - from Easy to Difficult</span></b></span><br /> <span><span><br /></span></span> <span><span>Of the many constraints to building more accessible ICT in India, a major set lies within the control of government and stakeholders, provided they act together and are not adversarial about policies governing access technologies:</span></span><br /> <br /></p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li><span>There are unused frequencies in the 60 GHz band for which inexpensive equipment is available abroad with a capacity of several gigabits. Press reports years ago mentioned the de-licensing of this band in India. Last November, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) recommended de-licensing Wi-Fi use, and light licensing backhaul with minimal charges. Yet, this asset is wasted because there's no policy permitting its use. It costs nothing to de-license in line with global norms. Apart from additional Wi-Fi capacity, service providers could use it for backhaul from small cells. Revenues are likely to rise, and the government would collect increased taxes. Domestic manufacturers could possibly develop products for what should be a huge market.<br /> </span></li>
<li><span>Another proven technology is satellite communications. This is priced too high in India, as explained in "Satellite communications can drive the broadband revolution", Business Standard, 23 April 2016.2 Satcom tariffs are apparently nearly 300 times higher than in the US, while private sector applications for manufacturing satellites are languishing. Also, there is considerable potential for manufacturing associated equipment, such as VSATs, end-user terminals, and so on.<br /> </span></li>
<li><span>A third area is unused or underutilised government spectrum. The most-useful and least-controversial, except for turf considerations, is unused broadcast spectrum in the sub-700 MHz bands. Government departments, namely, the department of telecommunications (DoT), the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (I&B), the Department of Electronics and Information Technology (DeITY), and the Trai, could coordinate their approach, so that I&B and Doordarshan retain the spectrum, while allowing common access to shared spectrum and infrastructure for paid use by service providers. Doordarshan could increase its reach by providing programming and content over these links.</span><span><br />These frequencies would be most effective in extending rural broadband, because of the distances that could be covered inexpensively. There is an issue with equipment, as there are no large, established markets anywhere yet for TV White Space devices, and there is insufficient support for local manufacturing even with Indian intellectual property rights. In fact, we have a Catch-22 situation here: such devices are likely to have massive deployment in India, but we don't have policies that allow these frequencies for broadband. The irony is that developers who manufacture prototypes in India have no access to</span><span> spectrum </span><span><span>even for testing their products, and will have to rely on markets abroad for testing as well as sales.</span><span><b><span> </span></b></span></span></li>
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<p style="text-align: justify; "><span><span><b><span>Other Frequencies</span></b></span></span></p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
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<p style="text-align: justify; "><span> </span><span> <span> </span></span><span><span>Rules restricting usage of other frequencies could also be amended through a coordinated process. The result could be policies that treat spectrum usage as part of a shared infrastructure solution for Digital India. Using a shared access for payment approach with secondary sharing, primary holders of spectrum can retain usage rights, while government revenues accrue from swathes of spectrum that now remain unused, and holders of spectrum earn from common access.</span></span></p>
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For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/telecom/blog/business-standard-september-1-2016-shyam-ponappa-digital-india-needs-these-policy-changes'>https://cis-india.org/telecom/blog/business-standard-september-1-2016-shyam-ponappa-digital-india-needs-these-policy-changes</a>
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No publisherShyam PonappaTelecomDigital IndiaSpectrum2016-10-02T10:09:17ZBlog EntryCIS Submission to TRAI Consultation on Proliferation of Broadband through Public WiFi Networks
https://cis-india.org/telecom/blog/cis-submission-to-trai-consultation-on-proliferation-of-broadband-through-public-wifi-networks
<b>The Centre for Internet and Society (“CIS”) is grateful for the opportunity to comment on this Consultation Paper (“Paper”). The comments were prepared by Sunil Abraham, Sharath Chandra Ram, Vidushi Marda, and Thejaswi Melarkode. Special thanks to Shyam Ponappa and Arjun Venkatraman for their inputs and feedback.</b>
<h2 style="text-align: justify; ">Preliminary Comments</h2>
<ol style="text-align: justify; "></ol>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Even in the early to mid-seventies, many Indians who wanted to own a radio receiver were expected to get a license from the government. If not then they were in violation of the law and there was nothing the government could do to enforce policies for their benefit. The deregulation of radio ownership has been key to its unfettered adoption and popularity today. Similarly, Wi-Fi, a radio transceiver must be deregulated further to bridge India's digital divide.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Before addressing specific questions posed by the Paper, we would like to make the following observations:</p>
<ol style="text-align: justify; ">
<li> The Paper considers only commercial models for the provision of public Wi-Fi networks. This is a problematic assumption as it ignores the potential of not-for-profit models that involve grassroots communities, academia and civil society.</li>
<li>The Paper is infused with a vision and philosophy that is reminiscent of a colonial, license raj, centralized, top-down, command and control based, state monopoly paradigm. This is diametrically opposed to the foundational ethos of the Internet.</li>
<li>The Paper assumes that more regulation is required in order to ensure mass adoption of public Wi-Fi. In fact, the exact opposite is true - the rapid proliferation of broadband through public Wi-Fi networks will only be accomplished by aggressive deregulation.</li>
<li>The technological architecture being advanced by the Paper signals support of governance cum surveillance projects such as Aadhaar aka UID, India Stack, UPI and related projects which only undermine cyber-security and interferes with healthy competitive market dynamics between commercial and non-commercial actors. Again this is diametrically opposed to the foundational ethos of the Internet and a modern democratic information society. </li>
</ol>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; "><a name="_1fl95fmecs67"></a> Q1. Are there any regulatory issues, licensing restrictions or other factors that are hampering the growth of public Wi-Fi services in the country?</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The most pressing issue which is hampering the growth of public Wi-Fi services in the country is that of over regulation. Under the current regulatory framework, public Wi-Fi is subject to licensing requirements, data retention, and Know-Your-Customer ("KYC") policies. The next issue is paucity of spectrum. So far the approach has been to assign exclusive property rights to certain frequencies and also raise billions of US Dollars through spectrum auctions based on the Supreme Court's understanding of spectrum as a national resource. Given the advancements in transceiver technologies, such as cognitive radios, it is possible for us to transcend the grid-lock of property rights and embrace paradigms like shared and unlicensed spectrum. Innovative technologies and neutral allocation of unlicensed spectrum will result in the growth of public and community wireless networks including those built on the Wi-Fi standard.</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; "><a name="_3hwmagyo3b5n"></a> Q2. What regulatory/licensing or policy measures are required to encourage the deployment of commercial models for ubiquitous city-wide Wi-Fi networks as well as expansion of Wi-Fi networks in remote or rural areas?</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The regulatory approach should be to <b>deregulate </b>the radio transceiver as much as possible so as to encourage innovation with lower barriers for participation.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The question falsely assumes that only commercial players can provide public Wi-Fi, Para 1.9 of the Paper only identifies scenarios where Unified License (UL) holders can take advantage of unlicensed spectrum to provide public Wi-Fi services. It fails to recognize that civil society, academia, and grassroots communities can also bring about ubiquitous city-wide Wi-Fi networks and expansion to remote and rural areas. For example, Village Telco and mesh networks are community-driven Wi-Fi models that are allowing a large number of individuals to gain access to Internet services using a public spirited or peer-to-peer philosophy.<a href="#_ftn1" name="_ftnref1"><sup><sup>[1]</sup></sup></a></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">In terms of regulatory measures, CIS would recommend minimal and proportionate regulation, i.e. the regulation of entities involved in the provision of public Wi-Fi networks based on their capacity to harm the public interest and/or individual rights. By this we mean that only public Wi-Fi networks that have a large number of users (say, more than 5,000 individual users) should be subject to any regulation. Small-scale public Wi-Fi network providers, like public Wi-Fi networks in small villages or apartment complexes, should be left to self-regulation. Regulatory burdens which serve no purpose only deter these providers from providing such services at all.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Regulation must be technology-neutral, and should focus on the entities using these technologies who are capable of unlocking good or causing harm. This neutrality should be reflected in the name of the policy: "community-networking policy" and not "community Wi-Fi policy". The necessary changes must also be incorporated in the Paper and the draft policy to make this clear. The current definition of Wi-Fi is closely coupled with certain frequencies, and public wireless networks should be promoted regardless of technology and specific frequency bands.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">In cases where private data services, (such as mobile telephony/ other private application specific data infrastructures) which may have been granted permission to deploy on an open-unlicensed or delicensed part of the spectrum, experience interference from a Public Wi-Fi setup. On the same frequency band, we call for the Public Wi-Fi to be given priority. This will prevent spectrum squatting.</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; "><a name="_bbdam8kpm2d2"></a> Q3. What measures are required to encourage interoperability between the Wi-Fi networks of different service providers, both within the country and internationally?</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">This is a requirement for elite parts of society only but not a deal breaker for the provision of public Wi-Fi in India. There are a variety of existing market-based approaches. The further deregulation of Wi-Fi will result in the rise of public, community and non-commercial players which in turn will lead to further innovation and competition when it comes to interoperability across disparate Wi-Fi networks and providers.</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; "><a name="_mu1y5gasks48"></a> Q4. What measures are required to encourage interoperability between cellular and Wi-Fi networks?</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">No measures are required. Millions of consumers in India already are able to interoperate between cellular networks and their home and office networks as they are in charge of the authentication or they have left these networks open. The reason they are unable to operate more easily with other networks is due to data retention, and KYC policies. Even in countries with much more challenging national security concerns, the data retention and KYC policies are not so strict. We are paying a terrible price in terms of broadband adoption because of our flawed approach to surveillance and cyber security. The answer here lies in deregulation of existing requirements, especially for community based organisations, NGOs, research institutions, educational institutions, galleries, museums, archives and public libraries. This will address the needs of those who cannot pay and are vulnerable. For those who can pay - commercial actors will innovate and provide the high-quality interoperability that they seek - this will not require any action on the part of the government.</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; "><a name="_cu58z42hlrt2"></a> Q5. Apart from frequency bands already recommended by TRAI to DoT, are there additional bands which need to be de-licensed in order to expedite the penetration of broadband using Wi-Fi technology? Please provide international examples, if any, in support of your answer.</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">In a 2012 policy brief on unlicensed spectrum<a href="#_ftn2" name="_ftnref2"><sup><sup>[2]</sup></sup></a>, CIS recommended the changes, listed below [in italics]. Since then, more modern approaches may have emerged which merit revisiting this question. These advances also merit delicensing bands more aggressively as the proprietary approach becomes more and more dated. This approach should also be technology neutral and must find a balance between proprietary, unlicensed, and shared spectrum.<a href="#_ftn3" name="_ftnref3"><sup><sup>[3]</sup></sup></a></p>
<ol style="text-align: justify; ">
<li> Frequencies in the 6, 11, 18, 23, 24, 60, 70, and 80 GHz bands<i>, </i>to facilitate replicating examples like Webpass (USA) which has radios capable of delivering up to 2Gbps both upstream and downstream.<a href="#_ftn4" name="_ftnref4"><sup><sup>[4]</sup></sup></a></li>
<li><i>Frequencies in the <b>5.15 GHz-5.35 GHz</b> bands, as well as<b> 5.725-5.775 GHz</b> bands are unlicensed for indoor use only. These bands should be unlicensed for outdoor use as well in order to facilitate the creation of wider wireless communication networks and the use of innovative technologies.</i></li>
<li><i>There should be more unlicensed spectrum in the <b>2.4 GHz range</b>, beyond what is already unlicensed, for the expansion of wireless communication networks.</i></li>
<li><i>The <b>1800-1890 MHz band</b>, which is earmarked for the operations of low power cordless communication in India, should be unlicensed in line with international practices. Many bands for this use have already been unlicensed in Europe and the United States. <a href="#_ftn5" name="_ftnref5"><sup><b><sup>[5]</sup></b></sup></a></i></li>
<li><b>50 Mhz in the</b> <b>700Mhz - 900Mhz</b> <b>band, </b>earmarked for broadcast should be made available to better utilize available spectrum, almost 100Mhz is currently unused in most parts of the country. </li>
</ol>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; "><a name="_t8aujvprhoz9"></a> Q6. Are there any challenges being faced in the login/authentication procedure for access to Wi-Fi hotspots? In what ways can the process be simplified to provide frictionless access to public Wi-Fi hotspots, for domestic users as well as foreign tourists?</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The challenge here is that of over regulation and the belief that elaborate KYC requirements will solve problems of national security. What these requirements achieve is a lot of inconvenience for the general population while criminals are able to evade detection through fake IDs, burner phones, etc. as KYC requirements only create barriers without security payoffs. The fact that jurisdictions such as the UK, and other countries in Europe allow for purchase of SIM cards without KYC norms goes to show that there are effective ways of gathering intelligence that do not involve a KYC regime.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">In terms of authentication, a healthy ecosystem will allow for both anonymous access to Wi-Fi hotspots as well as access through authentication.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">There is a need for deregulation in order to allow anonymous access. For access through authentication, some providers may wish to have light KYC norms whereas others may choose to have rigorous KYC norms that are integrated with Aadhaar, India Stack, etc. The decision should ultimately be taken by the provider and thus deregulation is the key. The most frictionless model is the unauthenticated model that allows anonymous access, followed by a light KYC regime, and the model with the most friction is that with intensive KYC requirements.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The existing customer log-in procedure requirements that have been laid down by the Department of Telecommunications (DoT), Ministry of Communications, Government of India, which necessitate a user to provide a photo ID or to avail a one-time password (OTP) through SMS should be done away with for two reasons. <b>First</b>, it does not allow for a user to access the public Wi-Fi network without authentication and this leads to a loss of anonymity over that network when the user accesses any Internet-based services. <b>Secondly</b>, it assumes that all people will have access to mobile phones/smartphones. So far as the Indian scenario is concerned, this is certainly not the case in many households where only the head of the family, who is more often than not a male member, has access to such devices. Many individuals also use much simpler devices which may not be able to receive OTPs (<i>see</i> Raspberry Pi models, for example). Such a requirement would, in effect, deprive a large number of individuals from accessing public Wi-Fi services and would defeat the purpose of even setting up such networks.</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; "><a name="_m5cx0q9llg2d"></a> Q7. Are there any challenges being faced in making payments for access to Wi-Fi hotspots? Please elaborate and suggest a payment arrangement which will offer frictionless and secured payment for the access of Wi-Fi services.</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">This question is backed by three assumptions. First, it assumes that only commercial provision of Wi-Fi is possible. Second, it assumes that "a (singular) payment arrangement" is the preferred approach. Third, it assumes that it is possible for regulators to predict the most appropriate business / technological model for payments online. This is best left to competition between commercial and noncommercial players in the market. The existing regulations from the RBI and laws that govern electronic transactions are sufficient. No specific regulations are required for access to Wi-Fi hotspots.</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; "><a name="_f057f6vzcz3w"></a> Q8. Is there a need to adopt a hub-based model along the lines suggested by the WBA, where a central third party AAA (Authentication, Authorization and Accounting) hub will facilitate interconnection, authentication and payments? Who should own and control the hub? Should the hub operator be subject to any regulations to ensure service standards, data protection, etc.?</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">"A central third party AAA (Authentication, Authorization and Accounting) hub" is antithetical to the foundational ethos of the Internet. Any attempt to foist that on Indian citizens will lead to a slowing down of wireless broadband adoption. From a cyber-security perspective this can only lead to large-scale and irreversible disasters and on the contrary policy measures should be taken to prevent centralization. For Indian cyberspace to be a resilient and free market, competition amongst both commercial and noncommercial players must be enabled for Authentication, Authorization and Accounting.</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; "><a name="_idfswzxywg43"></a> Q9. Is there a need for ISPs/ the proposed hub operator to adopt the Unified Payment Interface (UPI) or other similar payment platforms for easy subscription of Wi-Fi access? Who should own and control such payment platforms? Please give full details in support of your answer.</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">As we submitted in response to the earlier question: "a central third party AAA (Authentication, Authorization and Accounting) hub" is antithetical to the foundational ethos of the Internet. Aadhaar aka UID, India Stack and the Unified Payment Interface (UPI) are similar state sanctioned monopolies that only increase fragility and interfere with the functioning of markets. Also this question assumes that citizens will have to pay for access to WiFi. Therefore, we recommend that the government does not regulate payments beyond the existing measures in Banking Law.</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; "><a name="_ffura5n97nm"></a> Q10. Is it feasible to have an architecture wherein a common grid can be created through which any small entity can become a data service provider and able to share its available data to any consumer or user?</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The government or the regulator should not be making recommendations on technical architectures. All that is required to the lift all limits on reselling or sharing data via law.</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; "><a name="_c8nuutpxjf12"></a> Q11. What regulatory/licensing measures are required to develop such architecture? Is this a right time to allow such reselling of data to ensure affordable data tariff to public, ensure ubiquitous presence of Wi-Fi Network and allow innovation in the market?</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">CIS would ask for forbearance in this regard, as anything else will be a case of over regulation.</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; "><a name="_w4subepdd8z"></a> Q12. What measures are required to promote hosting of data of community interest at local level to reduce cost of data to the consumers?</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">There are two measures that can be taken. The first is to change the public procurement policy to promote openness in the form of free and open source software, open standards, open content, open access, open educational resources and open data.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The second is to use public funds to shape the market and create publicly licensed material, or material available under exceptions and limitations of copyright law. To promote hosting data of community interest at a local level, public funds must be used to create intellectual property that can be freely licensed to the public. India already has a progressive copyright law, and the exceptions available under it should be seeded by the government through public funding. These exceptions include the statutory exception of copyright cess/ levy to broadband bills, exceptions for the disabled, libraries and archives and also education.</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; "><a name="_wkhha0i1vdq7"></a> Q13. Any other issue related to the matter of Consultation.</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Figure 2.2 of the Paper depicts Wi-Fi Monetization Pyramid based on Cisco's Wi-Fi Opportunity Pyramid.[2] As pointed out earlier, this ignores the possibility of non-commercial models. To quote Bruce Schneier, "<i>surveillance is the business model of the Internet</i>" <a href="#_ftn6" name="_ftnref6"><sup><sup>[6]</sup></sup></a> and this business model is one that should not be encouraged. The pyramid only allows for a for-profit model and it is inherently based on needless surveillance of users. While monetization may be one of the main incentives, it is by no means the only way to sustain such public Wi-Fi networks and for this reason, CIS recommends that such a depiction be discarded.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The balancing of this monetization pyramid is one of the requirements to put in place an effective public Wi-Fi network structure. Another issue arises with respect to the definition of Wi-Fi. Currently, spectrum is limited to the 2.4 GHz or the 5 GHz bands but this has been expanded upon to encompass the LTE (4G) Core during the GSMA, Wireless Broadband Alliance and Wi-Fi Alliance 3GPP following the Mobile World Congress in 2013. Such a set-up would allow for frequency hopping between bands and to prevent (or allow) this, the definition of Wi-Fi in the context of public Wi-Fi networks must be clarified.</p>
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<div id="ftn1">
<p><a href="#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1"><sup><sup>[1]</sup></sup></a> <i>See </i> Centre for Internet and Society, Unlicensed Spectrum Brief for the Government of India, June 2012;<i> Available at </i> http://cis-india.org/telecom/unlicensed-spectrum-brief.pdf</p>
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<div id="ftn2">
<p><a href="#_ftnref2" name="_ftn2"><sup><sup>[2]</sup></sup></a> <i>Supra </i> note 1.</p>
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<div id="ftn3">
<p><a href="#_ftnref3" name="_ftn3"><sup><sup>[3]</sup></sup></a> Example of shared spectrum being advanced in the US: " <i> Specifically, the FCC adopted rules for CBRS, opening 150 MHz of spectrum in the 3550-3700 MHz band for commercial use. A Spectrum Access System (SAS), which is now in the process of being hammered out at the FCC with prospective coordinators, will make it possible to share spectrum where it hasn't been done before </i> ." <i>See, </i>Monica Alleven, <i>"</i><i>Google, Intel, Nokia and more partner to advance U.S. 3.5 GHz CBRS", </i>Fierce Wireless, (February 18, 2016) available at <a href="http://www.fiercewireless.com/tech/google-intel-nokia-and-more-partner-to-advance-u-s-3-5-ghz-cbrs"> http://www.fiercewireless.com/tech/google-intel-nokia-and-more-partner-to-advance-u-s-3-5-ghz-cbrs </a> .</p>
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<div id="ftn4">
<p><a href="#_ftnref4" name="_ftn4"><sup><sup>[4]</sup></sup></a> " <i> Webpass buildings have radios capable of delivering up to 2Gbps both upstream and downstream… Anything beyond 5,000 meters will still work but you lose bandwidth… Webpass radios operate in many different frequencies, including the unlicensed 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands used by Wi-Fi, Barr said. Webpass also uses the 6, 11, 18, 23, 24, 60, 70, and 80GHz bands. These include a mix of licensed and unlicensed frequencies…" </i> <i>See, </i> Jon Brodkin, "500 Mbps broadband for $55 a month offered by wireless ISP", arsTECHNICA, (June 18, 2015), available at: <a href="http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2015/06/500mbps-broadband-for-55-a-month-offered-by-wireless-isp/"> http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2015/06/500mbps-broadband-for-55-a-month-offered-by-wireless-isp/ </a></p>
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<div id="ftn5">
<p><a href="#_ftnref5" name="_ftn5"><sup><sup>[5]</sup></sup></a> <i>Supra</i> note 1, at 17.</p>
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<div id="ftn6">
<p><a href="#_ftnref6" name="_ftn6"><sup><sup>[6]</sup></sup></a> <i>See</i> Bruce Schneier, <i>'Stalker economy' here to stay</i>, CNN, (Nov. 26, 2013, 17:53 GMT), <i>available at </i> http://edition.cnn.com/2013/11/20/opinion/schneier-stalker-economy/index.html</p>
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For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/telecom/blog/cis-submission-to-trai-consultation-on-proliferation-of-broadband-through-public-wifi-networks'>https://cis-india.org/telecom/blog/cis-submission-to-trai-consultation-on-proliferation-of-broadband-through-public-wifi-networks</a>
</p>
No publisherSunil Abraham, Sharath Chandra Ram, Vidushi Marda, and Thejaswi MelarkodeTelecom2016-10-02T06:16:46ZBlog EntryTRAI Free Data paper: Paytm to Hike, the responses from other companies
https://cis-india.org/telecom/news/indian-express-july-5-2016-trai-free-data-paper-paytm-to-hike-the-responses-from-other-companies
<b>Here's a look at responses of other players like Paytm, Hike Messenger, Nasscom, Centre for Internet Society to TRAI's paper.
</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><a class="external-link" href="http://indianexpress.com/article/technology/tech-news-technology/trai-free-data-paper-paytm-hike-datawind-nasscom-response-2894657/">This was published in the Indian Express on July 5, 2016</a>.</p>
<hr style="text-align: justify; " />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">While telecos are not too happy with Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI)’s proposal for TSP-agnostic platforms to provide free data, other companies and groups have also responded to the paper.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">On May 19, TRAI released a consultation paper on how to provide free data for consumers and whether a TSP-agnostic platform was one possible solution. TRAI in its paper asked if it was possible to give out free data as rewards to customers, and whether such models should be regulated. Here’s a look at responses of other players like Paytm, Hike Messenger, Nasscom, Centre for Internet Society, etc to TRAI’s paper.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><img src="https://cis-india.org/home-images/Mobile.jpg" alt="Mobile" class="image-inline" title="Mobile" /></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Paytm has also issued an official response to TRAI’s paper.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Paytm</b></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Paytm’s response indicates it views TSP-agnostic platforms for free data as being against the principles of Net Neutrality.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">In the response Paytm has said, “Telecom Service Providers (TSPs) being the producers/owners of data have an undue advantage compared to others if award is provided in the form of free data. Award in the form of free data can be used to replicate the effect of zero cost of access for selected sites, an outcome that is against the principle of Net Neutrality.”</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The company says free data won’t solve the problem and instead of giving data back as rewards, a neutral currency should be employed as an incentive.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Datawind</b></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Tablet maker Datawind has also responded to the paper and said that a “TSP-agnostic platform as suggested in this consultation paper would benefit the ability of content providers and application providers in delivering affordable internet access.”</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Datawind’s statement says breaking the affordability barrier is a key issue in increasing broadband adoption in India, and “this consultation-paper is an important step towards exploring such solutions.”</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Hike Messenger</b></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Hike Messenger has also argued in favour of a “TSP-agnostic platform” and say it can allow “start-ups like ours to purchase data in bulk that in turn we can use to make certain parts of the app free.”</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The response reads, “TSP agnostic platform would allow data purchase from all TSPs in the market and have a very transparent approval process to ensure that no malicious apps abuse (similar to how the<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://indianexpress.com/tag/google/">Google</a><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Play Store operates) and a pricing plan/rate card that would allow start-ups to purchase data potentially availing of discounts based on volume.”</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">It also favours some “light regulation should be employed” in case TRAI does adopt this model.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/telecom/news/indian-express-july-5-2016-trai-free-data-paper-paytm-to-hike-the-responses-from-other-companies'>https://cis-india.org/telecom/news/indian-express-july-5-2016-trai-free-data-paper-paytm-to-hike-the-responses-from-other-companies</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaTelecom2016-07-09T02:44:49ZNews ItemCall drops: Dealing with the menace or just shifting goal posts?
https://cis-india.org/telecom/news/india-tv-news-june-26-2016-call-drops
<b>It is nothing short of an irony that the world’s second largest mobile user market that boasts of being the world’s fastest growing economy is plagued by poor infrastructure and overloaded networks to an extent that many callers are cut off even before they can finish a sentence. The fault in India’s much-acclaimed telecom revolution is a questioning, frequent phenomenon called “call drops”. There have been several signature campaigns and media pressure demanding that the government and telecom companies get their heads together to fix this raging demon of a problem. However, all they have been treated with is lip service and nothing more.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The article was <a class="external-link" href="http://www.indiatvnews.com/business/india-call-drop-and-its-possible-solutions-337037">published by India TV News</a> on June 29, 2016</p>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">So, on one hand we have Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad claiming that the call drop problem is improving as telecom companies are installing towers, and on the other is TRAI that shows reports that operators like Aircel, Vodafone and Idea are using call drop masking technology incorrectly to fudge the data on call drops. Not long ago, we had Prime Minister Narendra Modi himself take up the issue and we saw a flurry of allegations and counter allegations flying between the government and the telecom companies on where the fault actually lies.<br /><br />While the government claimed it had freed enough spectrum to fix network issues and blamed the companies for not investing enough in the infrastructure, the telcos hit back at the government saying they were facing regulatory hurdles in setting up of towers because of environmental issues posed by regulation. In all, we kept going in circles and the change promised remained as elusive as its perception.<br /><br />Reality is that for cell phone users in India, call drop continues as a common phenomenon and figures released by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) attest to this claim. According to TRAI, the figures have doubled in the last one year and the worst affected cell has more than 3% TCH drop (traffic channel call drop) rate, which is four times higher than the permitted limit. Quality of Service Regulations has allowed service providers a 2 per cent allowance of call drops on the basis of averaging call drops per month. <br /><br />TRAI has recently conducted Audit and assessment of Quality of Service being provided by service providers through independent agencies for Cellular Mobile Telephone Service, Basic Service and Broadband Services in many states. In Ahmedabad all the operators have failed to meet the call drop rate benchmark of less that 2% expect Airtel 2G. Also in Mumbai most of the operators have not met the less that 2% call drop benchmark except Airtel 2G and 3G and Vodafone 2G.<br /><br />Many other states have gone through this drive test and have failed.<br /><br />This begs us to put up a serious question in the interest of the more than 103.518 cr users who shell out money for pathetic services - Is the problem actually being resolved or are we, the consumers, being taken for a royal ride?<br /><br />Before we set out to give you a complete idea on the state of affairs and where we stand in terms of actually working towards fixing this problem, a look at some basics first to put things in context.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><img src="https://cis-india.org/home-images/Telecom.jpg" alt="Telecom" class="image-inline" title="Telecom" /></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>What is call drop?</b></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">A call drop technically signifies the service provider’s incapability to maintain a call, either incoming or outgoing, once it has been properly established. In India, call drops are a performance indicator for the country’s telecom networks. In many cities, mobile users have to rush from one room to another or drive around neighborhoods to find better signals or better voice quality.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Call drops now figure among the top customer issues with telcos in several Indian cities. There is very little transparency on call drop data but it can be said that most companies have multiple sites where the call drop incidence is much above the set 2 percent limit. New Delhi has been particularly hit after city authorities cracked down and sealed unlicensed mobile towers.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The problem had increased so much that India’s Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, the industry regulator, had specified that telecom service providers need to compensate users for dropped calls. The regulator said that the consumers will be paid Re.1 per call up to 3 dropped calls per day, only to be turned down by the Supreme Court, rendering the TRAI decision null and void.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Telecom companies had cried foul over the directive, firstly by saying that the regulator had no authority to levy such penalty and secondly, by saying that it wasn't possible to segregate the reasons for call drops.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">SC gave a 99-page judgment and said that the regulation appears to be meant only to penalise telcos. The judgment highlighted various flaws in the ruling by the Delhi high court which upheld TRAIs regulation.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">It further upheld the 2% exemption extended to service providers with regard to call drops and said the regulation would have penalized them despite it.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">“A penalty that is imposed ‘without any reason’ either as to the number of call drops made being three, and only to the calling consumer, ‘far from balancing the interest of consumers and service providers’, is manifestly arbitrary, not being based on any factual data or reason,” the court said.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>A ‘towering’ menace</b></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Towers act as boosters that help radio waves travel better, and are a necessary part of the telecom architecture in any country. There are approximately 5,50,000 towers in India, and industry associations think another 1,00,000 are needed. The lower radio bands need less towers to travel longer distances, so when telecom companies offer services like 3G or 4G, they have to be at higher frequencies (2,100 MHz or 2,300 MHz instead of 900 MHz), which need more tower support.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Call drops occur due to several reasons.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Cities like Mumbai, Delhi, Chandigarh, Bengaluru, Jaipur and Patna have less towers than needed. Civic authorities across the country have shut down a total of around 10,000 towers and an additional 12,000 towers cannot be used due to various reasons.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Telecom companies are reluctant to share towers. This is because they are fixed investments by subsidiaries of telecom companies. Permission to erect a tower is given by the municipal body, but no uniform standards or procedures exist here.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The setting up of boosters on buildings remains a task, and permission has to be taken on a case-by-case basis. Things could improve if telecom connectivity were seen as being similar to water and power supply, and developers were to apply for a uniform set of permissions.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">If we take the recent scenario the State-run telecom operator BSNL is said to expand its network in Chhattisgarh by installing 2,000 new mobile towers in the next two years, Communications and IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad, stepping forward to strengthen mobile connectivity in the state.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Telecom Secretary J S Deepak recently said that penal powers cannot be “one and final solution” for call drop and the telecom firms have committed Rs 12,000 cr to install new towers to check this problem.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">“Government believes in the telecom sector. The quality of service must improve and industry has responsibility. They have committed 60,000 towers. Each tower cost about Rs 20 lakh which is around Rs 12,000 crore. The industry will make this investment in next three months,” he said recently.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Most of the mobile service providers have frequently failed in quarterly sample call drop tests conducted by Trai but operators have contested the results saying that they comply with benchmark set by the regulator.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">On this, the operators raised issues such as regulatory hurdles by local authorities and opposition by residents associations to installation of mobile towers.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">“All top CEOs have said they will set up war rooms to address this issue. We need to work with them to facilitate installation of mobile towers,” Deepak said.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">“We are coordinating with minister (Ravi Shankar Prasad) to launch portal on EMF (radiation) next month. This will give data of about 4.3 lakh mobile towers. People can go online and check if a tower is emitting radiation within limit or not so that citizens are aware that it not an issue,” he added.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">So after the launch of portal on EMF (radiation) next month, the fight on hurdles might be resolved, which will then raise questions on the operators if the call drop issue still persists.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Do companies benefit from call drops?</b></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">All the benefits depend on the tariff plan. If it’s measured in seconds, the telecom company gains nothing — no matter how many times the connection cut, billing resumes at the same rate. But if it is measured in minutes, or if the plan contains features such as a certain number of free calls in every billing cycle, call drops is a nightmare for the consumers.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Telecom firms claim that 95 per cent of tariff plans involves billing in seconds. Since call drops are the most common in overcrowded areas, interruptions tend to shorten the call and, to that extent, reduce the average revenue per user per minute. Since companies measure their performance on the basis of call drops too, it is risky for anyone to intentionally create conditions for drops, thus porting to another operator.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) in a report said that the telecom industry is facing a lot of challenges which are leading to call drops:</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li>State bodies initiate actions against the towers without any prior notices like disconnecting electricity supplies, sealing the premises and even dismantling of tower sites.</li>
<li>Restrictions imposed by state governments and municipalities for wireless sites for erecting cell-sites in non-commercial areas, sealing of the cell-sites by municipal authorities.</li>
<li>Issues pertaining to Right of Way (RoW) – due to no approval, operators are not even in a position to put up sites. Frequent fiber cuts due to infrastructure projects are recurring phenomena in almost all circles.</li>
<li>Site outages on account of long power failures and delay in restoration of power supply by electricity boards.</li>
<li>Owner/legal issues, which is an important factor, because if the operator does not obtain the permission to set up the cell site, calls in the area would be dropped.</li>
<li>Interference due to illegal wide band radio and coverage restrictions arising out of cross border spectrum interference.</li>
<li>Shortage of spectrum amid surging data traffic growth and the lack of availability of a sufficient quantum of globally harmonized spectrum in contiguous form is the biggest impediment to the deployment of wireless technologies in the access network and hence for better quality of service resulting in increased call drops with the increase in data traffic.</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Government’s role and what it can do</b></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The government says that call drops can be addressed to a large extent through better management of spectrum, something that will only provide partial relief. The occurrence of call drops is higher at busy areas, typically city centres. This means there is an unequal spread of traffic across the spectrum.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Regardless of these technical roadblocks, there is actually quite a lot that the government can do.</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li>General allowing of shared spectrum so that the same bandwidth is homogenously distributed among towers that are in a row.</li>
<li>Government rules prohibit spectrum swapping, but to tackle the issue a policy should be amended for the same.</li>
<li>Unused spectrum bands, which are either not used or have been missed due to the traffic in the bandwidth should be reformed and put to efficient use.</li>
<li>Every state should be encouraged to use uniform procedures on towers and policies regarding this should be amended. </li>
<li>Set up rules for companies to improve on their services. Besides penalty which has been dropped government should keep a check on telcos to work properly.</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Pranesh Prakash, Policy Director at the Centre for Internet and Society said that Telecom companies in India have scarcity in terms of spectrum, which needs to be rationalised by allowing spectrum policy in India.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">He also added that the government’s decision of not allowing spectrum supply doesn’t really make sense as India needs the policy. Also, the radiations emitted by the spectrum which are harming people should be scientifically taken care of.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>What are the benchmarks for call drop that should be followed by the telcos?</b></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">TRAI has laid down the quality of service benchmarks for call drop rate to be less than 2 percent. The 2 percent call drop benchmark means that not more than 2 percent calls made from a network should automatically disconnected in a telecom circle.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Recently, the call drop test was conducted in Bhopal and Mumbai. TRAI found that most operators in Mumbai, except Airtel 2G/3G and Vodafone 2G, are not meeting the under 2 per cent call drop rate benchmark. In the drive tests conducted during May 10 to 13 in Mumbai, the call drop rates of No 1 carrier, Bharti Airtel's 2G and 3G networks, stood at 1.49 per cent and 1.94 per cent, while Vodafone-2G's was 1.68 per cent.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Other than Airtel and Vodafone in 2G, all operators failed to meet the Call Drop Rate benchmark in Bhopal. TRAI in a report said that Idea, Reliance and BSNL all have Call Drop Rates in the range of 10 percent or above. These are exceptionally high and clearly indicate urgent need for improvement in order to deliver reasonable levels of service.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>What steps should be taken to improve the problem?</b></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">A lot has to be done to settle the issue. The mobile towers do not have an unlimited capacity for handling the current network load. So telecom companies need to increase the towers to tackle the load. This is being followed as telecom operators have decided to invest Rs.12,000 crore for installation of 60,000 more towers over the next three months, while the BSNL will install 21,000 BTS towers a report said.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">A report by TRAI said that the problems like removal of towers from certain areas by authorities needs to be addressed. Also, with the increase in the usage of 3G networks, the growth rate of mobile towers supporting 2G networks has reduced, which also needs to be addressed.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Recently, Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad claimed that the call drop problem was improving with various telecom companies are installing about 1.24 lakh towers to mitigate the issue. In a report he said, “Things are improving....private telecom operators have installed one lakh towers, while the State-owned BSNL has put in place 24,000 Base Transceiver Station (BTS) towers across the country in the past one year to improve the call drop problem.”</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>The roadmap</b></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Surveys are being conducted and a lot of efforts are being made by the operators and also TRAI to solve the call drop issue. However, in a country with the world’s second-largest mobile user market it is tough to solve the problem completely but not impossible. That, in theory, is the situation. On ground though, things don’t appear to be running in tune with tall claims by the government or the telecom companies. If the situation is improving, as the government claims, change needs to be visible, which is apparently not the case. Also, if the investments are being made to the tune of what the telecom companies are claiming, that would translate into solving the issue.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The moot point here is that if the number of towers is the root cause behind the millions of consumers facing this absolute nightmare of an issue, can this “go-getter” government not come to any arrangement so as to solve the issue? Perhaps, the government, which displayed exemplary enthusiasm in gaining a seat in the coveted Nuclear Suppliers Group, needs to translate some of that energy into getting to a solution for an issue plaguing a large and growing population of its billion plus populace. It would only serve some good. No pun intended.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/telecom/news/india-tv-news-june-26-2016-call-drops'>https://cis-india.org/telecom/news/india-tv-news-june-26-2016-call-drops</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaTelecomTRAI2016-07-01T16:45:45ZNews ItemSlow internet driving you nuts? Here is how your service provider is fleecing you
https://cis-india.org/telecom/news/economic-times-kalyan-parbat-june-23-2016-slow-internet-driving-you-nuts
<b>June 20 was World Wifi Day — an occasion to celebrate speedy, reliable internet connections. India, although a major internet market and the fastest growing now, is a very odd place for such celebration. Average internet speed in India is lower than all other countries in BRICs and lower than most other emerging economies.
</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The article was <a class="external-link" href="http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/tech/internet/slow-internet-driving-you-nuts-here-is-how-your-service-provider-is-fleecing-you/articleshow/52876719.cms">published in the Economic Times</a> on June 23, 2016. Sunil Abraham was quoted.</p>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Plus, wired broadband speeds available to 17 million paying consumers in India are far below what service providers promise when they charge end users for particular data services. A data service package that promises 8 Mbps will typically max out at 5 Mbps (Mbps is megabits per second, a measure of internet speed). Wireless connections are even more patchy.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Still worse, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) and consumer advocacy groups haven't made much headway and service providers are ready with a set of arguments. Trai, which will release a consultation paper on promoting WiFi in public places, has a fairly conservative definition of broadband — that download speed should not fall below 512 kbps (kilobits per second; 1Mbps equals 1,000 kbps).</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The end result: high-paying consumers suffer.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">In a wired broadband service used at homes, few factors determine performance. First, the contention ratio, a key metric that measures the number of internet users sharing a fixed amount of data capacity or 'bandwidth' in a location at the same time. If the number of such users is large, the contention ratio will be high and real internet speed low.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Second, the latency of a network, a measure of the delay a user experiences when his/her computer tries to access an internet server. If a service provider runs a low latency network, internet speed will be better.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Third is per capita spectrum usage/holdings in a country and India's is far below that of Western countries and major emerging economies.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">In India, a low bandwidth availability country to begin with, wired broadband services typically have high contention ratio and/or high latency. Service providers Bharti Airtel, RCom and BSNL did not reply to ET's queries on internet speed.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Bijender Yadav, chief technology & information officer at Sistema Shyam Teleservices, another service provider, told ET data download speeds could fall below contracted levels in case of improper network planning and bandwidth distribution, or if there are glitches in the transmission link between a service provider's internet gateway and the home broadband user's premises.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">A senior executive of a leading wired broadband service said, on the condition of anonymity, that companies do make certain assumptions.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Say, 10 customers are sold 2 Mbps connections, which means 20 Mbps should be available. But the company may provide only 5 Mbps for these 10 customers, assuming not all customers will be using their internet connections heavily at the same time. Therefore, the guaranteed internet speed is not 2 Mbps, but just 500 kbps.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Many telco executives ET spoke to said while the contention ratios are high given bandwidth availability, since bandwidth is a "scarce resource" it must be "optimised" to keep prices low for consumers. These executives spoke off record.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Consumer advocacy groups are however sceptical of this argument. They say companies are simply maximising data connection sales without offering good network quality.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">"Telcos are selling bandwidth way beyond the optimum capacity of their networks and compromising on speed. Could they have done this if bandwidth was a tangible resource like cars or machines...imagine selling more cars than you've manufactured," asks Hemant Upadhyay, advisor (telecom and IT) at Consumer Voice, a leading telecom consumer group.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Consumer groups have recently urged the telecom regulator, Trai, to ensure an app that can continuously monitor bandwidth availability should be in use.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Sunil Abraham, executive director of Bengaluru-based research organisation, Centre for Internet and Society, argues Trai must ensure mandatory disclosure of contention ratios by service providers. "If such disclosures become mandatory, home broadband users can buy wired internet connections more judiciously with a better sense of what data speeds to expect from telcos and the possible quality of their experience."</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Trai did not offer any comment on the call for mandatory disclosure of contention ratios by wired broadband operators.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">A top executive of a leading operator, speaking off record, dismissed the proposal, saying "it wouldn't make sense to mandate service providers to make such disclosures as contention ratios vary from place to place".</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Some experts are optimistic that WiFi networks may offer better services to high-paying data consumers. Bharti Airtel, Vodafone and new entrant Reliance Jio Infocomm are deploying WiFi networks.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Airtel and Vodafone have also launched WiFi hotspots apps. Jio is slated to do the same after its expected launch later this year.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">But WiFi in public places hasn't taken off so far. Cumbersome authentication procedures and challenges around monetising services have been hurdles.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The speed of internet in the world's fastest growing internet market will likely remain below world average in the near future.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Plus, wired broadband speeds available to 17 million paying consumers in India are far below what service providers promise when they charge end users for particular data services. A data service package that promises 8 Mbps will typically max out at 5 Mbps (Mbps is megabits per second, a measure of internet speed). Wireless connections are even more patchy.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Still worse, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) and consumer advocacy groups haven't made much headway and service providers are ready with a set of arguments. Trai, which will release a consultation paper on promoting WiFi in public places, has a fairly conservative definition of broadband — that download speed should not fall below 512 kbps (kilobits per second; 1Mbps equals 1,000 kbps).<br /> The end result: high-paying consumers suffer.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">In a wired broadband service used at homes, few factors determine performance. First, the contention ratio, a key metric that measures the number of internet users sharing a fixed amount of data capacity or 'bandwidth' in a location at the same time. If the number of such users is large, the contention ratio will be high and real internet speed low.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Second, the latency of a network, a measure of the delay a user experiences when his/her computer tries to access an internet server. If a service provider runs a low latency network, internet speed will be better.<br /> Third is per capita spectrum usage/holdings in a country and India's is far below that of Western countries and major emerging economies.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">In India, a low bandwidth availability country to begin with, wired broadband services typically have high contention ratio and/or high latency. Service providers Bharti Airtel, RCom and BSNL did not reply to ET's queries on internet speed.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Bijender Yadav, chief technology & information officer at Sistema Shyam Teleservices, another service provider, told ET data download speeds could fall below contracted levels in case of improper network planning and bandwidth distribution, or if there are glitches in the transmission link between a service provider's internet gateway and the home broadband user's premises.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">A senior executive of a leading wired broadband service said, on the condition of anonymity, that companies do make certain assumptions.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Say, 10 customers are sold 2 Mbps connections, which means 20 Mbps should be available. But the company may provide only 5 Mbps for these 10 customers, assuming not all customers will be using their internet connections heavily at the same time. Therefore, the guaranteed internet speed is not 2 Mbps, but just 500 kbps.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Many telco executives ET spoke to said while the contention ratios are high given bandwidth availability, since bandwidth is a "scarce resource" it must be "optimised" to keep prices low for consumers. These executives spoke off record.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Consumer advocacy groups are however sceptical of this argument. They say companies are simply maximising data connection sales without offering good network quality.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">"Telcos are selling bandwidth way beyond the optimum capacity of their networks and compromising on speed. Could they have done this if bandwidth was a tangible resource like cars or machines...imagine selling more cars than you've manufactured," asks Hemant Upadhyay, advisor (telecom and IT) at Consumer Voice, a leading telecom consumer group.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Consumer groups have recently urged the telecom regulator, Trai, to ensure an app that can continuously monitor bandwidth availability should be in use.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Sunil Abraham, executive director of Bengaluru-based research organisation, Centre for Internet and Society, argues Trai must ensure mandatory disclosure of contention ratios by service providers. "If such disclosures become mandatory, home broadband users can buy wired internet connections more judiciously with a better sense of what data speeds to expect from telcos and the possible quality of their experience."</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Trai did not offer any comment on the call for mandatory disclosure of contention ratios by wired broadband operators.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">A top executive of a leading operator, speaking off record, dismissed the proposal, saying "it wouldn't make sense to mandate service providers to make such disclosures as contention ratios vary from place to place".</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Some experts are optimistic that WiFi networks may offer better services to high-paying data consumers. Bharti Airtel, Vodafone and new entrant Reliance Jio Infocomm are deploying WiFi networks.<br /> Airtel and Vodafone have also launched WiFi hotspots apps. Jio is slated to do the same after its expected launch later this year.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">But WiFi in public places hasn't taken off so far. Cumbersome authentication procedures and challenges around monetising services have been hurdles.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The speed of internet in the world's fastest growing internet market will likely remain below world average in the near future.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/telecom/news/economic-times-kalyan-parbat-june-23-2016-slow-internet-driving-you-nuts'>https://cis-india.org/telecom/news/economic-times-kalyan-parbat-june-23-2016-slow-internet-driving-you-nuts</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaBroadbandTelecomTRAI2016-07-01T15:32:58ZNews ItemCIS Submission to TRAI Consultation on Free Data
https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/cis-submission-trai-consultation-free-data
<b>The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) held a consultation on Free Data, for which CIS sent in the following comments.</b>
<p> </p>
<p>The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) asked for <a href="http://trai.gov.in/WriteReadData/ConsultationPaper/Document/CP_07_free_data_consultation.pdf">public comments on free data</a>. Below are the comments that CIS submitted to the four questions that it posed.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2 id="question-1">Question 1
<p><em>Is there a need to have TSP agnostic platform to provide free data or suitable reimbursement to users, without violating the principles of Differential Pricing for Data laid down in TRAI Regulation? Please suggest the most suitable model to achieve the objective.</em></p>
</h2>
<h3 id="is-there-a-need-for-free-data">Is There a Need for Free Data?</h3>
<p>No, there is no <em>need</em> for free data, just as there is no <em>need</em> for telephony or Internet. However, making provisions for free data would increase the amount of innovation in the Internet and telecom sector, and there is a good probability that it would lead to faster adoption of the Internet, and thus be beneficial in terms of commerce, freedom of expression, freedom of association, and many other ways.</p>
<p>Thus the question that a telecom regulator should ask is not whether there is a <em>need</em> for TSP agnostic platforms, but whether such platforms are harmful for competition, for consumers, and for innovation. The telecom regulator ought not undertake regulation unless there is evidence to show that harm has been caused or that harm is likely to be caused. In short, TRAI should not follow the precautionary principle, since the telecom and Internet sectors are greatly divergent from environmental protection: the burden of proof for showing that something ought to be prohibited ought to be on those calling for prohibition.</p>
<h3 id="goal-regulating-gatekeeping">Goal: Regulating Gatekeeping</h3>
<p>TRAI wouldn’t need to regulate price discrimination or Net neutrality if ISPs were not “gatekeepers” for last-mile access. “Gatekeeping” occurs when a single entity establishes itself as an exclusive route to reach a large number of people and businesses or, in network terms, nodes. It is not possible for Internet services to reach their end customers without passing through ISPs (generally telecom networks). The situation is very different in the middle-mile and for backhaul. Even though anti-competitive terms may exist in the middle-mile, especially given the opacity of terms in “transit agreements”, a packet is usually able to travel through multiple routes if one route is too expensive (even if that is not the shortest network path, and is thus inefficient in a way). However, this multiplicity of routes is generally not possible in the last mile.<a id="fnref1" class="footnoteRef" href="#fn1"><sup>1</sup></a> This leaves last mile telecom operators (ISPs) in a position to unfairly discriminate between different Internet services or destinations or applications, while harming consumer choice.</p>
<p>However, the aim of regulation by TRAI cannot be to prevent gatekeeping, since that is not possible as long as there are a limited number of ISPs. For instance, even by the very act of charging money for access to the Internet, ISPs are guilty of “gatekeeping” since they are controlling who can and cannot access an Internet service that way. Instead, the aim of regulation by TRAI should be to “regulate gatekeepers to ensure they do not use their gatekeeping power to unjustly discriminate between similarly situated persons, content or traffic”, as we proposed in our submission to TRAI (on OTTs) last year.</p>
<h3 id="models-for-free-data">Models for Free Data</h3>
<p>There are multiple models possible for free data, none of which TRAI should prohibit unless it would enable OTTs to abuse their gatekeeping powers.</p>
<h4 id="government-incentives-for-non-differentiated-free-data">Government Incentives For Non-Differentiated Free Data</h4>
<p>The government may opt to require all ISPs to provide free Internet to all at a minimum QoS in exchange for exemption from paying part of their USO contributions, or the government may pay ISPs for such access using their USO contributions.</p>
<p>TRAI should recommend to DoT that it set up a committee to study the feasibility of this model.</p>
<h4 id="isp-subsidies">ISP subsidies</h4>
<p>ISP subsidies of Internet access only make economic sense for the ISP under the following ‘Goldilocks’ condition is met: the experience with the subsidised service is ‘good enough’ for the consumers to want to continue to use such services, but ‘bad enough’ for a large number of them to want to move to unsubsidised, paid access.</p>
<ol style="list-style-type: decimal;">
<li>Providing free Internet to all at a low speed.
<ol style="list-style-type: lower-alpha;">
<li>This naturally discriminates against services and applications such as video streaming, but does not technically bar access to them.</li></ol>
</li>
<li>Providing free access to the Internet with other restrictions on quality that aren’t discriminatory with respect to content, services, or applications.</li></ol>
<h4 id="rewards-model">Rewards model</h4>
<p>A TSP-agnostic rewards platform will only come within the scope of TRAI regulation if the platform has some form of agreement with the TSPs, even if it is collectively. If the rewards platform doesn’t have any agreement with any TSP, then TRAI does not have the power to regulate it. However, if the rewards platform has an agreement with any TSP, it is unclear whether it would be allowed under the Differential Data Tariff Regulation, since the clause 3(2) read with paragraph 30 of the Explanatory Memorandum might disallow such an agreement.</p>
<p>Assuming for the sake of argument that platforms with such agreements are not disallowed, such platforms can engage in either post-purchase credits or pre-purchase credits, or both. In other words, it could be a situation where a person has to purchase a data pack, engage in some activity relating to the platform (answer surveys, use particular apps, etc.) and thereupon get credit of some form transferred to one’s SIM, or it could be a situation where even without purchasing a data pack, a consumer can earn credits and thereupon use those credits towards data.</p>
<p>The former kind of rewards platform is not as useful when it comes to encouraging people to use the Internet, since only those who already see worth in using in the Internet (and can afford it) will purchase a data pack in the first place. The second form, on the other hand is quite useful, and could be encouraged. However, this second model is not as easily workable, economically, for fixed line connections, since there is a higher initial investment involved.</p>
<h4 id="recharge-api">Recharge API</h4>
<p>A recharge API could be fashioned in one of two ways: (1) via the operating system on the phone, allowing a TSP or third parties (whether OTTs or other intermediaries) to transfer credit to the SIM card on the phone which have been bought wholesale. Another model could be that of all TSPs providing a recharge API for the use of third parties. Only the second model is likely to result in a “toll-free” experience since in the first model, like in the case of a rewards platform that requires up-front purchase of data packs, there has to be a investment made first before that amount is recouped. This is likely to hamper the utility of such a model.</p>
<p>Further, in the first case, TRAI would probably not have the powers to regulate such transactions, as there would be no need for any involvement by the TSP. If anti-competitive agreements or abuse of dominant position seems to be taking place, it would be up to the Competition Commission of India to investigate.</p>
<p>However, the second model would have to be overseen by TRAI to ensure that the recharge APIs don’t impose additional costs on OTTs, or unduly harm competition and innovation. For instance, there ought to be an open specification for such an API, which all the TSPs should use in order to reduce the costs on OTTs. Further, there should be no exclusivity, and no preferential treatment provided for the TSPs sister concerns or partners.</p>
<h4 id="example-sites">“0.example” sites</h4>
<p>Other forms of free data, for instance by TSPs choosing not to charge for low-bandwidth traffic should be allowed, as long as it is not discriminatory, nor does it impose increased barriers to entry for OTTs. For instance, if a website self-certifies that it is low-bandwidth and optimized for Internet-enabled feature phones and uses 0.example.tld to signal this (just as wap.* were used in for WAP sites and m.* are used for mobile-optimized versions of many sites), then there is no reason why TSPs should be prohibited from not charging for the data consumed by such websites, as long as the TSP does so uniformly without discrimination. In such cases, the TSP is not harming competition, harming consumers, nor abusing its gatekeeping powers.</p>
<h4 id="ott-agnostic-free-data">OTT-agnostic free data</h4>
<p>If a TSP decides not to charge for specific forms of traffic (for example, video, or for locally-peered traffic) regardless of the Internet service from which that traffic emanates, as as long as it does so with the end customer’s consent, then there is no question of the TSP harming competition, harming consumers, nor abusing its gatekeeping powers. There is no reason such schemes should be prohibited by TRAI unless they distort markets and harm innovation.</p>
<h4 id="unified-marketplace">Unified marketplace</h4>
<p>One other way to do what is proposed as the “recharge API” model is to create a highly-regulated market where the gatekeeping powers of the ISP are diminished, and the ISP’s ability to leverage its exclusive access over its customers are curtailed. A comparison may be drawn here to the rules that are often set by standard-setting bodies where patents are involved: given that these patents are essential inputs, access to them must be allowed through fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory licences. Access to the Internet and common carriers like telecom networks, being even more important (since alternatives exist to particular standards, but not to the Internet itself), must be placed at an even higher pedestal and thus even stricter regulation to ensure fair competition.</p>
<p>A marketplace of this sort would impose some regulatory burdens on TRAI and place burdens on innovations by the ISPs, but a regulated marketplace harms ISP innovation less than not allowing a market at all.</p>
<p>At a minimum, such a marketplace must ensure non-exclusivity, non-discrimination, and transparency. Thus, at a minimum, a telecom provider cannot discriminate between any OTTs who want similar access to zero-rating. Further, a telecom provider cannot prevent any OTT from zero-rating with any other telecom provider. To ensure that telecom providers are actually following this stipulation, transparency is needed, as a minimum.</p>
<p>Transparency can take one of two forms: transparency to the regulator alone and transparency to the public. Transparency to the regulator alone would enable OTTs and ISPs to keep the terms of their commercial transactions secret from their competitors, but enable the regulator, upon request, to ensure that this doesn’t lead to anti-competitive practices. This model would increase the burden on the regulator, but would be more palatable to OTTs and ISPs, and more comparable to the wholesale data market where the terms of such agreements are strictly-guarded commercial secrets. On the other hand, requiring transparency to the public would reduce the burden on the regulator, despite coming at a cost of secrecy of commercial terms, and is far more preferable.</p>
<p>Beyond transparency, a regulation could take the form of insisting on standard rates and terms for all OTT players, with differential usage tiers if need be, to ensure that access is truly non-discriminatory. This is how the market is structured on the retail side.</p>
<p>Since there are transaction costs in individually approaching each telecom provider for such zero-rating, the market would greatly benefit from a single marketplace where OTTs can come and enter into agreements with multiple telecom providers.</p>
<p>Even in this model, telecom networks will be charging based not only on the fact of the number of customers they have, but on the basis of them having exclusive routing to those customers. Further, even under the standard-rates based single-market model, a particular zero-rated site may be accessible for free from one network, but not across all networks: unlike the situation with a toll-free number in which no such distinction exists.</p>
<p>To resolve this, the regulator may propose that if an OTT wishes to engage in paid zero-rating, it will need to do so across all networks, since if it doesn’t there is risk of providing an unfair advantage to one network over another and increasing the gatekeeper effect rather than decreasing it.</p>
<h2 id="question-2">Question 2</h2>
<p><em>Whether such platforms need to be regulated by the TRAI or market be allowed to develop these platforms?</em></p>
<p>In many cases, TRAI would have no powers over such platforms, so the question of TRAI regulating does not arise. In all other cases, TRAI can allow the market to develop such platforms, and then see if any of them violates the Discriminatory Data Tariffs Regualation. For government-incentivised schemes that are proposed above, TRAI should take proactive measure in getting their feasibility evaluated.</p>
<h2 id="question-3">Question 3</h2>
<p><em>Whether free data or suitable reimbursement to users should be limited to mobile data users only or could it be extended through technical means to subscribers of fixed line broadband or leased line?</em></p>
<p>Spectrum is naturally a scarce resource, though technological advances (as dictated by Cooper’s Law) and more efficient management of spectrum make it less so. However, we have seen that fixed-line broadband has more or less stagnated for the past many years, while mobile access has increased. So the market distortionary power of fixed-line providers is far less than that of mobile providers. However, competition is far less in fixed-line Internet access services, while it is far higher in mobile Internet access. Switching costs in fixed-line Internet access services are also far higher than in mobile services. Given these differences, the regulation with regard to price discrimination might justifiably be different.</p>
<p>All in all, for this particular issue, it is unclear why different rules should apply to mobile users and fixed line users.</p>
<h2 id="question-4">Question 4</h2>
<p><em>Any other issue related to the matter of Consultation.</em></p>
<p>None.</p>
<div class="footnotes">
<hr />
<ol>
<li id="fn1">
<p>In India’s mobile telecom sector, according to a Nielsen study, an estimated 15% of mobile users are multi-SIM users, meaning the “gatekeeping” effect is significantly reduced in both directions: Internet services can reach them via multiple ISPs, and conversely they can reach Internet services via multiple ISPs. <em>See</em> Nielsen, ‘Telecom Transitions: Tracking the Multi-SIM Phenomena in India’, http://www.nielsen.com/in/en/insights/reports/2015/telecom-transitions-tracking-the-multi-sim-phenomena-in-india.html<a href="#fnref1">↩</a></p>
</li></ol>
</div>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/cis-submission-trai-consultation-free-data'>https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/cis-submission-trai-consultation-free-data</a>
</p>
No publisherpraneshTelecomHomepageTRAINet NeutralityFeaturedInternet GovernanceSubmissions2016-07-01T16:04:27ZBlog EntryWorkshop on Set-top Boxes
https://cis-india.org/telecom/events/workshop-set-top-boxes
<b>The Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) is organising a one-day workshop in Delhi on Tuesday, July 12 on the evolution and state of the set-top box as an access device in India. </b>
<p style="text-align: justify;">The workshop will be conducted by Dr. Rakesh Mehrotra who is a professor at Sharda University. It will be supported by an advisor from the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India to cover the aspect of regulation. The workshop will focus on the expanding functionality and innovations in set-top box (STB) technologies. It will also include an exposition on the regulatory regime applicable to STBs, around issues of interoperability, competition and privacy, and conclude with an outlook on the future of STBs.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">We will initiate research collaborations with suitable participants to produce papers after the workshop. Certificates of participation will be provided.</p>
<h3>Apply</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify;">There are limited spots for participants. Please state your interest by filling out this form here- <a class="external-link" href="http://goo.gl/forms/Mj77h0nkeVBJgHJn2">http://goo.gl/forms/Mj77h0nkeVBJgHJn2</a> The deadline for filling application is <strong>July 5, 2016</strong>.</p>
<h3>Fee and Funding</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify;">There is no registration fee for the workshop. Participants will be served lunch and refreshments at the venue. Please note that there is no funding for travel and accommodation.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/telecom/events/workshop-set-top-boxes'>https://cis-india.org/telecom/events/workshop-set-top-boxes</a>
</p>
No publishersinhaTelecomEventPrivacy2016-06-24T15:13:22ZEventAirtel Open Network
https://cis-india.org/telecom/blog/airtel-open-network
<b>Today, Airtel launched its Open Network platform. The web page displays visualization data on network coverage and signal strength across the country, as well as a detailed breakdown of cell tower placement, including towers that are shutdown or still being planned.</b>
<p><span style="text-align: justify; ">Airtel also reportedly promises that its call centres and physical stores have been upgraded with tools based on the new interface to allow for easy reporting of network coverage issues.</span><a href="#ftn1" style="text-align: justify; ">[1]</a><span style="text-align: justify; "> </span><span style="text-align: justify; ">Users can report issues or request new cell towers directly through the platform.</span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><span>This is part of Airtel’s wider ‘Project Leap’, a Rs. 60,000 crore overhaul of the operator’s network, which claims to include a bevy of technological solutions aimed at improving service. Airtel claims that these include smaller cells, indoor solutions, Wi-Fi hotspots and upgraded base stations.</span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><span>This is a praiseworthy move on Airtel’s part. No other major telecoms company has undertaken a similar initiative. There exist private alternatives such as OpenSignal</span><a href="#ftn2">[2]</a><a href="#ftn3">[3]</a> <span>that provide cell coverage map, among others. However, these services make use of crowdsourced data collection from users to create their maps.</span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><span>While the portal is very convenient, it is worth pointing out that the website itself contains no links to any open data -- merely the visualization of data. At the time of writing, there was no indication of any way to request access to raw data on network coverage. While OpenSignal and other alternatives provide APIs</span><a href="#ftn4">[4]</a> o<span>r direct access to their database, we saw no similar services on the Open Network website. Without access to raw data the Open Network initiative isn’t really open, as citizens cannot make use of data in any way other than what is provided in the visualization. Raw network coverage data would be immensely valuable to public and private actors, researchers, and the general public alike.</span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><span> </span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Furthermore, while the portal indicates the quality of coverage in an area (including separate indicators for voice and data quality) it gives no indications as to how these categories were arrived at, or what a ‘Moderate’ level of data quality means empirically. It is also unclear how often the visualization is refreshed, or how old the data currently on display are.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">In addition, the provisions for reporting issues through the platform seem to be lacking, and it is unclear how open Airtel will be with these. Expressing interest in hosting a cell tower takes you to an online form and a promise that ‘we will get in touch with you.’ By contrast, trying to report an issue takes you to a ‘network troubleshooting guide’ with some basic tech support information and a number to call an advisor.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The Open Network website promises that “the more open questions you ask, the more open answers we can give.” But the platform contains no fundamentally new or different mechanisms for reporting issues which take advantage of the crowdsourced ethos that Airtel lays claim to. <span>While this is a very promising first step for the company, we hope that they continue to refine their website and display a meaningful commitment to the principles they have espoused here.</span><span>Furthermore, while the portal indicates the quality of coverage in an area (including separate indicators for voice and data quality) it gives no indications as to how these categories were arrived at, or what a ‘Moderate’ level of data quality means empirically. It is also unclear how often the visualization is refreshed, or how old the data currently on display are. </span><span>In addition, the provisions for reporting issues through the platform seem to be lacking, and it is unclear how open Airtel will be with these. </span></p>
<div style="text-align: justify; "><span>Expressing interest in hosting a cell tower takes you to an online form and a promise that ‘we will get in touch with you.’ By contrast, trying to report an issue takes you to a ‘network troubleshooting guide’ with some basic tech support information and a number to call an advisor. </span></div>
<hr />
<p><a name="ftn1"></a> http://gadgets.ndtv.com/telecom/news/airtels-open-network-launched-on-app-to-show-coverage-quality-across-india-849280</p>
<p><a name="ftn2"></a> opensignal.com</p>
<p><a name="ftn3"></a> https://radiocells.org/</p>
<p><a name="ftn4"></a> http://developer.opensignal.com/networkrank/</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/telecom/blog/airtel-open-network'>https://cis-india.org/telecom/blog/airtel-open-network</a>
</p>
No publisherHarsh Gupta and Aditya TejasTelecom2016-06-17T11:58:31ZBlog EntryBreakthroughs Needed For Digital India
https://cis-india.org/telecom/blog/business-standard-april-6-2016-shyam-ponappa-breakthroughs-needed-for-digital-india
<b>It's time the government accepts that current policies are not enough to bring about Digital India.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The article originally published in the <a class="external-link" href="http://www.business-standard.com/article/opinion/shyam-ponappa-breakthroughs-needed-for-digital-india-116040601241_1.html">Business Standard</a> on April 6, 2016 was also mirrored on <a class="external-link" href="http://organizing-india.blogspot.in/2016/04/breakthroughs-needed-for-digital-india.html">Organizing India BlogSpot</a> on April 7, 2016.</p>
<hr style="text-align: justify; " />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">It helps to remind oneself of the scale of Digital India, its magnitude and sweep: to provide e-governance and other e-services everywhere, including 250,000 gram panchayats serving another 400,000 villages. That includes all the backbone and aggregation networks, and institutional processes to get there. The links in<a href="http://digitalindia.gov.in/" target="_blank">digitalindia.gov.in</a>, such as <a href="http://www.bbnl.nic.in/" target="_blank">http://www.bbnl.nic.in/</a>, illustrate what's involved - and because many users are from households, the demand is for even more extensive networks.<br /><br />The menu of services through Internet access is ambitious, and includes government services, health care, education, market information, financial services and so on. But it's the lack of basic access, of the "pipes" and "plumbing" for connectivity, that's the first, most difficult, yet essential step. Until this aspect is in place, getting results in areas such as efficient delivery of electricity, e-governance - including subsidies, education and skills, health care, manufacturing, and so on - is very much more difficult.<br /><br />These services make up a robust wishlist, although their commercial underpinnings have yet to be designed and spelt out. As regards delivery, significant policy developments were reported last week. The Telecom Commission approved the operation of virtual network operators, allowing for operators who don't own networks or spectrum. They also recommended lowering spectrum usage charges from five per cent to three per cent of Adjusted Gross Revenues, while the exception of one per cent for Broadband Wireless Access spectrum continues. The bad news was in the Budget for 2016: service tax of 14.5 per cent on spectrum acquisitions, including through auctions.<br /><br />But these are simply not enough. It's time the government accepts that Digital India is too distant, and they'd better formulate corrective measures. For example, even after 10 years with some success in setting up Common Services Centres (CSCs) in parts of the country, there doesn't seem to be a replicable template with sufficient momentum for ubiquitous connectivity. Worse, urban services remain constrained by too little spectrum that costs too much, with many impediments to augmenting capacity.<br /><br />Consider factors affecting execution and delivery.<br /><br />First, there's the telecommunications industry in its current beleaguered state. Its constituents have their backs to the wall for various reasons:</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li>Low revenues and high costs.</li>
<li>Constrained access because of shortages - of networks; or of the means to build them, such as inexpensive rights-of-way, where laying fibre is feasible and viable; and where that isn't, shortage of inexpensive spectrum, and other cost-impediments such as local government charges for towers.</li>
<li>Below-par services for current demand.</li>
<li>Loads of debt, much of it incurred to pay for spectrum.</li>
<li>Banks with little appetite for further lending to this sector, and</li>
<li>Uncertain market sentiment.</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; "> </p>
<div style="text-align: justify; ">For local manufacturers, the competition from global vendors is formidable if not overwhelming, given their advantages of ready access to capital, tax breaks, state sponsorship, established products and markets, and relationships. Access to spectrum will enable development and testing of devices, which is very difficult under present circumstances, but local manufacturing also needs entire ecosystems.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify; "></div>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><br />For the government, there's an overriding imperative for revenue collection. The motivation is an unrelenting need for (legitimate) expenditure on infrastructure, governance, and basic welfare in a developing economy. This is compounded by execution on a massive scale that also involves changes in user behaviour, for instance, village institutions like CSCs that have yet to take root. Another level of complexity is because two-thirds of users are from non-urban areas requiring extensive wireless broadband, untested for rural delivery except for satellite television.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "> </p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">With the public and media suspicious of government and industry, resolving these aspects is more difficult because of their skepticism and opposition. There's a disinclination to evaluate policies objectively because of recent scams. It is increasingly obvious that plugging away at legacy plans with their failure rate won't do, and more effective ways must be framed to achieve connectivity. For solutions acceptable to the government, to service providers, and the public, essential criteria are transparency and fairness. Next, the approach must be practicable, yield reasonable government revenues, and have reasonable profit potential. All these elements are required for sustainable initiatives. Every step has to be thought through, with all government departments working together (another big ask) and with industry, from the basic strands: connective links, sustainable equipment at reasonable cost, and revenue streams (whether from user payments or partly from subsidies) for services and content to more than cover those costs.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/telecom/blog/business-standard-april-6-2016-shyam-ponappa-breakthroughs-needed-for-digital-india'>https://cis-india.org/telecom/blog/business-standard-april-6-2016-shyam-ponappa-breakthroughs-needed-for-digital-india</a>
</p>
No publisherShyam PonappaTelecomDigital India2016-05-04T02:34:19ZBlog EntryApril 2016 Newsletter
https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/april-2016-newsletter
<b>Welcome to the CIS newsletter for April 2016. The key issues we worked on this month included the Aadhaar Act 2016, Standard Essential Patents, cyber security of smart grids, and involvement of international agencies in the smart cities project in India.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Early last year, thanks to the fund raising efforts of a friend of CIS - Suhail Kazi, we received Rs. 1.9 lakhs as donations from 19 individuals. In January this year, we set up an online giving feature on our website which would ease the donation process, but we haven’t got a single donation so far! This could be because many of you may be under a false impression that CIS is very wealthy and does not need more support. Unfortunately, this is no longer true. Today, we are unable to find a single donor who is interested in our Accessibility, Telecom, or RAW programmes. In other words, we need your support. Would you to consider making a small donation to CIS? <strong>Click <a href="http://imojo.in/CISDonations">here</a> to donate.</strong></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Previous issues of the newsletters can be accessed here: <a href="http://cis-india.org/about/newsletters">http://cis-india.org/about/newsletters</a>.</p>
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<th>Highlights</th>
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<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify;">CIS prepared an <a class="external-link" href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/aadhaar-project-and-bill-faq">FAQ on the Aadhaar / UIDAI project</a> and the Aadhaar (Targeted Delivery of Financial and Other Subsidies, Benefits and Services) Bill, 2016. Further, two infographics were produced to highlight on the questions of "<a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/can-the-aadhaar-act-2016-be-classified-as-a-money-bill">Can the Aadhaar Act 2016 be Classified as a Money Bill?</a>" and "<a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/can-matters-dealt-with-in-aadhaar-act-be-objects-of-money-bill">Can the Matters Dealt with in the Aadhaar Act be the Objects of a Money Bill?</a>".</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">NVDA team <a class="external-link" href="http://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/april-2016-report/view">prepared a report</a> on the progress of the project for the month of April 2016.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">CIS submitted its <a class="external-link" href="http://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/comments-on-department-of-industrial-policy-and-promotion-discussion-paper-on-standard-essential-patents-and-their-availability-on-frand-terms">comments to the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion's Discussion Paper</a> on Standard Essential Patents and their Availability on FRAND Terms. CIS has offered its assistance on other matters aimed at developing a suitable policy framework for SEPs and FRAND in India, and, working towards the sustained innovation, manufacture and availability of mobile technologies in India. A summary of the comments can be <a class="external-link" href="http://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/summary-of-cis-comments-to-dipp2019s-discussion-paper-on-seps-and-their-availability-on-frand-terms">accessed here</a>. Responses to the Discussion Paper is <a class="external-link" href="http://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/responses-to-the-dipps-discussion-paper-on-seps-and-their-availability-on-frand-terms">available here</a>.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">Rohini Lakshané's paper titled <a class="external-link" href="http://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/patents-and-mobile-devices-in-india-an-empirical-survey">Patents and Mobile Devices in India: An Empirical Survey</a> has been accepted for publication by the Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">Kiran A.B. in a <a class="external-link" href="http://cis-india.org/openness/monitoring-sustainable-development-goals-in-india-availability-and-openness-02">blog post has documented the availability and openness of data sets in India</a> that are relevant for monitoring the targets under the SDGs.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">Low-cost Aakash tablet and its previous iterations in India have gone through several phases of technological changes and ideological experiments wrote Sumandro Chattapadhyay and Jahnavi Phalkey <a class="external-link" href="http://cis-india.org/raw/buying-into-the-aakash-dream">in an article published in the Economic and Political Weekly</a>.</li></ul>
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<p style="text-align: justify;"><strong>----------------------------------- </strong><br /><a href="http://cis-india.org/news">CIS in the News</a><br /><strong>-----------------------------------</strong></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">CIS gave inputs to the following media coverage:</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify;"><li><a class="external-link" href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/daily-mail-april-4-2016-afp-india-biometric-database-crosses-billion-member-mark">India's biometric database crosses billion-member mark</a> (AFP and Daily Mail, UK; April 4, 2016).</li><li><a class="external-link" href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/big-news-network-april-6-2016-claire-lauterbach-panama-papers-and-question-of-privacy">The Panama Papers and the question of privacy</a> (Big News Network; April 6, 2016). This was originally published by Privacyinternational.org.</li><li><a class="external-link" href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/economic-times-april-8-2016-neha-alawadhi-daunting-task-ahead-for-investigative-agencies-with-whatsapp-end-to-end-encryption">Daunting task ahead for investigative agencies with WhatsApp's end-to-end encryption</a> (Neha Alawadhi; Economic Times; April 8, 2016).</li><li><a class="external-link" href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/the-hindu-april-10-2016-somesh-jha-pmo-no-to-smart-cards-insists-aadhaar">PMO’s no to smart cards, insists on Aadhaar</a> (Somesh Jha; Hindu; April 10, 2016).</li><li><a class="external-link" href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/the-telegraph-april-10-2016-2014-showed-the-power-of-twitter">2014 showed the power of Twitter, now every Indian politician wants a handle</a> (T.V. Jayan, Smitha Verma,Sonia Sarkar and V. Kumara Swamy; Telegraph; April 10, 2016).</li><li><a class="external-link" href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/business-standard-alnoor-peermohamed-april-13-2016-why-is-uidai-cracking-down-on-individuals-that-hoard-aadhaar-data">Why is the UIDAI cracking down on individuals that hoard Aadhaar data?</a> (Alnoor Peermohamed; Business Standard; April 13, 2016).</li><li><a class="external-link" href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/governance-now-april-19-2016-you-will-need-a-license-to-create-whatsapp-group-in-kashmir">You will need a license to create a WhatsApp group in Kashmir</a> (Governance Now; April 19, 2016).</li><li><a class="external-link" href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/governance-now-april-23-2016-taru-bhatia-will-facebook-twitter-relocate-servers-to-india">Will Facebook, Twitter relocate servers to India?</a> (Taru Bhatia; Governance Now; April 23, 2016).</li><li><a class="external-link" href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/dna-amrita-madhukalya-april-23-2016-government-keeps-experts-out-of-cyber-security-discussions">Government keeps experts out of cyber security discussions</a> (Amrita Madhukalya; DNA; April 23, 2016).</li><li><a class="external-link" href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/the-times-of-india-raj-shekhar-arun-dev-v-narayan-a-selvaraj-cctv-plays-sherlock">CCTV plays Sherlock</a> (Raj Shekhar, Arun Dev, V Narayan & A Selvaraj with inputs from Sindhu Kannan and Somreet Bhattacharya; The Times of India; April 24, 2016).</li></ul>
<div> </div>
<p>CIS members wrote the following pieces:</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify;"><li style="text-align: justify;">Sunil Abraham wrote an <a class="external-link" href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/frontline-april-15-2016-sunil-abraham-surveillance-project">article in the July 15 edition of Frontline</a> arguing that the Aadhaar project’s technological design and architecture is an unmitigated disaster and no amount of legal fixes in the Act will make it any better. </li><li style="text-align: justify;">Amber Sinha wrote an article in The Wire arguing that <a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/the-aadhaar-act-is-not-a-money-bill">the Aaddhaar Act is not a money bill</a>, and the Supreme Court may very well question the decision by the Lok Sabha speaker to classify it as such. </li><li style="text-align: justify;">Sumandro Chattapadhyay also wrote on The Wire arguing that "<a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/the-last-chance-for-a-welfare-state-doesnt-rest-in-the-aadhaar-system">the last chance for a welfare state doesn’t rest in the Aadhaar system</a>."</li><li style="text-align: justify;">Subhashish Panigrahi's article on the <a class="external-link" href="http://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/global-voices-april-27-2016-subhashish-panigrahi-eight-challenges-indian-language-wikipedias-need-to-overcome">8 challenges that Indian language Wikipedias have to overcome was published by Global Voices</a>. The article had earlier been published in the Wire.</li><li style="text-align: justify;">Elonnai Hickok and Vanya Rakesh co-authored an article on <a class="external-link" href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/dataquest-april-25-2016-vanya-rakesh-and-elonnai-hickok-cyber-security-of-smart-grids-in-india">Cyber Security of Smart Grids in India</a> that was published by Dataquest.</li><li style="text-align: justify;">Shyam Ponappa <a class="external-link" href="http://cis-india.org/telecom/blog/business-standard-april-6-2016-shyam-ponappa-breakthroughs-needed-for-digital-india">in his monthly column</a> published in the Business Standard tell us that it's time the government accepts that current policies are not enough to bring about Digital India.</li></ul>
<p style="text-align: justify;">-------------------------------------<br /><a href="http://cis-india.org/accessibility">Accessibility & Inclusion</a> <br /> ------------------------------------- <br /> India has an estimated 70 million persons with disabilities who don't have access to read printed materials due to some form of physical, sensory, cognitive or other disability. As part of our endeavour to make available accessible content for persons with disabilities, we are developing a text-to-speech software in 15 languages with support from the Hans Foundation. The progress made so far in the project can be accessed <a href="http://cis-india.org/accessibility/resources/nvda-text-to-speech-synthesizer">here</a>.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">►NVDA and eSpeak</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify;">
<li><a class="external-link" href="http://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/march-2016-report.pdf/view">March 2016 Report</a></li>
<li><a href="https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/april-2016-report" class="internal-link">April 2016 Report</a></li></ul>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><strong>----------------------------------- </strong><br /><a href="http://cis-india.org/a2k">Access to Knowledge</a> <br /><strong> ----------------------------------- </strong><br />Our Access to Knowledge programme currently consists of two projects. The Pervasive Technologies project, conducted under a grant from the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), aims to conduct research on the complex interplay between low-cost pervasive technologies and intellectual property, in order to encourage the proliferation and development of such technologies as a social good. The Wikipedia project, which is under a grant from the Wikimedia Foundation, is for the growth of Indic language communities and projects by designing community collaborations and partnerships that recruit and cultivate new editors and explore innovative approaches to building projects.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">►Pervasive Technologies</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><strong>Comments</strong></p>
<ul style="text-align: justify;">
<li><a class="external-link" href="http://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/comments-on-department-of-industrial-policy-and-promotion-discussion-paper-on-standard-essential-patents-and-their-availability-on-frand-terms">Comments on Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion Discussion Paper on Standard Essential Patents and their Availability on Frand Terms</a> (Anubha Sinha, Nehaa Chaudhari and Rohini Lakshané; April 23, 2016).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="http://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/responses-to-the-dipps-discussion-paper-on-seps-and-their-availability-on-frand-terms">Responses to the DIPP's Discussion Paper on SEPs and their Availability on FRAND Terms</a> (Anubha Sinha, Nehaa Chaudhari and Rohini Lakshané; April 23, 2016).</li>
<li>
<div id="_mcePaste"><a class="external-link" href="http://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/summary-of-cis-comments-to-dipp2019s-discussion-paper-on-seps-and-their-availability-on-frand-terms">Summary of CIS Comments to DIPP’s Discussion Paper on SEPs and their availability on FRAND terms</a> (Anubha Sinha; April 26, 2016).</div>
</li></ul>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><strong>Blog Entries</strong></p>
<ul style="text-align: justify;">
<li><a class="external-link" href="http://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/global-congress-2015">Global Congress 2015 - A Collection of Resources</a> (Pervasive Technologies Team; April 1, 2016).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="http://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/compilation-of-mobile-phone-patent-litigation-cases-in-india">Compilation of Mobile Phone Patent Litigation Cases in India</a> (Rohini Lakshané; updated on April 15, 2016). </li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="http://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/joining-the-dots-in-indias-big-ticket-mobile-phone-patent-litigation">Joining the Dots in India's Big-Ticket Mobile Phone Patent Litigation</a> (Rohini Lakshané; updated on April 29, 2016).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="http://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/mhrd-ipr-chair-series-information-received-from-tezpur-university">MHRD IPR Chair Series: Information Received from Tezpur University</a> (Karan Tripathi; April 26, 2016).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="http://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/sectoral-innovation-councils-on-intellectual-property-rights-2013-rti-requests-dipp-responses">National IPR Policy Series : Sectoral Innovation Councils on Intellectual Property Rights – RTI Requests + DIPP Responses</a> (Nehaa Chaudhari and Saahil Dama; April 30, 2016). Nisha S. Kumar assisted in compilation of the document.</li></ul>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><strong>Participation in Events</strong></p>
<ul style="text-align: justify;">
<li><a class="external-link" href="http://cis-india.org/a2k/news/fifth-annual-ip-teaching-workshop">Fifth Annual IP Teaching Workshop</a> (Organised by the Centre for Innovation, Intellectual Property and Competition at National Law University Delhi in association with National Academy of Law Teaching, NLU-D; Delhi; March 31 and April 1, 2016). Nehaa Chaudhari was a speaker.</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="http://cis-india.org/a2k/news/first-round-table-on-innovation-ip-and-competition">First Round-table on Innovation, IP and Competition</a> (Organized by the Centre for Innovation, Intellectual Property & Competition (CIIPC) at the National Law University, Delhi; India Habitat Centre; New Delhi; April 1-2, 2016). Nehaa Chaudhari and Anubha Sinha attended the round-table.</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="http://cis-india.org/a2k/news/brainstorming-workshop-on-pg-programme-on-media-studies-for-ugc-e-pathshala-programme">Brainstorming Workshop on PG Programme on Media Studies for UGC E-Pathshala Programme</a> (Organized by Jamia Milla Islamia; New Delhi; April 5, 2016).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="http://cis-india.org/a2k/news/sensitization-seminar-on-ipr-for-electronics-ict-sectors">Sensitization Seminar on IPR for Electronics & ICT Sectors</a> (Organized by Andhra Pradesh Technology Development & Promotion Centre (APTDC) of Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), in association with Department of Electronics and Information Technology (DeitY); Vishakhapatnam; April 21, 2016).</li></ul>
<p style="text-align: justify;">►Wikipedia</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">As part of the <a href="http://cis-india.org/a2k/access-to-knowledge-program-plan">project grant from the Wikimedia Foundation</a> we have reached out to more than 3500 people across India by organizing more than 100 outreach events and catalysed the release of encyclopaedic and other content under the Creative Commons (CC-BY-3.0) license in four Indian languages (21 books in Telugu, 13 in Odia, 4 volumes of encyclopaedia in Konkani and 6 volumes in Kannada, and 1 book on Odia language history in English).</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><strong>Work Plan</strong></p>
<ul style="text-align: justify;">
<li><a href="http://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/cis-a2k-work-plan-july-2016-june-2017">CIS - A2K Work Plan: July 2016 - June 2017</a> (CIS-A2K Team; April 2, 2016): We have revised the work plan template taking into account the changed proposal plan sent out by WMF and in light of the feedback that we have received from FDC assessment during last proposal application. The FDC feedback is taken into account at the level of design, RoI and ensuring quality for all our activities.</li></ul>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><strong>Article</strong></p>
<ul style="text-align: justify;">
<li><a href="http://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/global-voices-april-27-2016-subhashish-panigrahi-eight-challenges-indian-language-wikipedias-need-to-overcome">Eight Challenges Indian-Language Wikipedias Need to Overcome</a> (Subhashish Panigrahi; Global Voices; April 21, 2016). <strong> </strong><strong><a href="http://thewire.in/2016/03/17/eight-challenges-that-indian-language-wikipedias-need-to-overcome-25062/" target="_blank"><strong>A version of this post</strong></a></strong><strong> was previously published on </strong><strong><a href="http://thewire.in/" target="_blank"><strong>The Wire</strong></a></strong><strong>.</strong></li></ul>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><strong>Media Coverage</strong></p>
<ul style="text-align: justify;">
<li><a href="http://cis-india.org/a2k/news/the-telegraph-april-7-2016-anwesha-ambaly-odia-gets-more-space-in-e-world">Odia gets more space in e-world</a> (Anwesha Ambaly; The Telegraph; April 7, 2016).</li>
<li><a href="http://cis-india.org/a2k/news/exercise-to-correct-articles-in-tulu-wikipedia-begins">Exercise to Correct articles in Tulu Wikipedia begins</a> (Raviprasad Kamila; The Hindu; April 28, 2016).</li></ul>
<p><strong>Event Organized</strong></p>
<ul>
<li><a class="external-link" href="http://cis-india.org/a2k/events/tulu-wikipedia-editathon-to-improve-quality-of-articles-in-tulu-wikipedia">Tulu Wikipedia Editathon to Improve Quality of Articles in Tulu Wikipedia</a> (Shri Ramakrishna PU College; Mangaluru; April 26 - 30, 2016).</li></ul>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="text-align: justify;"><strong>-----------------------------------</strong><br /></span><a style="text-align: justify;" href="http://cis-india.org/openness">Openness<br /></a><span style="text-align: justify;"><strong>-----------------------------------</strong></span></p>
<div style="text-align: justify;">Our work in the Openness programme focuses on open data, especially open government data, open access, open education resources, open knowledge in Indic languages, open media, and open technologies and standards - hardware and software. We approach openness as a cross-cutting principle for knowledge production and distribution, and not as a thing-in-itself.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;"> </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<ul>
<li><a class="external-link" href="http://cis-india.org/openness/monitoring-sustainable-development-goals-in-india-availability-and-openness-02">Monitoring Sustainable Development Goals in India: Availability and Openness of Data</a> (Part II) (Kiran A.B.; April 12, 2016).</li></ul>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;"><strong>----------------------------------- </strong><br /> <a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance">Internet Governance</a> <br /><strong> -----------------------------------</strong></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: justify;">As part of its research on privacy and free speech, CIS is engaged with two different projects. The first one (under a grant from Privacy International and IDRC) is on surveillance and freedom of expression (SAFEGUARDS). The second one (under a grant from MacArthur Foundation) is on restrictions that the Indian government has placed on freedom of expression online.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;"> </div>
</div>
<p style="text-align: justify;">►Cyber Security</p>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<ul>
<li><a class="external-link" href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/dataquest-april-25-2016-vanya-rakesh-and-elonnai-hickok-cyber-security-of-smart-grids-in-india">Cyber Security of Smart Grids in India</a> (Elonnai Hickok and Vanya Rakesh; April 25, 2016).</li></ul>
</div>
</div>
<p style="text-align: justify;">►Big Data</p>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: justify;">Blog Entry</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<ul>
<li><a class="external-link" href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/rti-on-smart-cities-mission-in-india">RTI regarding Smart Cities Mission in India</a> (Paul Thottan; April 21, 2016).</li></ul>
<br /></div>
</div>
<p style="text-align: justify;">►Privacy</p>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div><strong>Blog Entries</strong></div>
<div>
<ul>
<li><a class="external-link" href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/aadhaar-project-and-bill-faq">FAQ on the Aadhaar Project and the Bill</a> (Elonnai Hickok, Vanya Rakesh, and Vipul Kharbanda; April 13, 2016).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/aadhaar-act-and-its-non-compliance-with-data-protection-law-in-india">Aadhaar Act and its Non-compliance with Data Protection Law in India</a> (Vanya Rakesh; April 14, 2016).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/can-matters-dealt-with-in-aadhaar-act-be-objects-of-money-bill">Can the Matters Dealt with in the Aadhaar Act be the Objects of a Money Bill?</a> (Pooja Saxena; April 24, 2016).</li></ul>
</div>
<div>
<div style="text-align: justify;"><strong>Articles</strong></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<ul>
<li><a class="external-link" href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/the-quint-march-31-2016-nehaa-chaudhari-will-aadhaar-act-address-indias-dire-need-for-a-privacy-law">Will Aadhaar Act Address India’s Dire Need For a Privacy Law?</a> (Nehaa Chaudhari; Quint; March 31, 2016).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/the-last-chance-for-a-welfare-state-doesnt-rest-in-the-aadhaar-system">The Last Chance for a Welfare State Doesn’t Rest in the Aadhaar System</a> (Sumandro Chattapadhyay; April 19, 2016).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/the-aadhaar-act-is-not-a-money-bill">The Aadhaar Act is Not a Money Bill</a> (Amber Sinha; April 25, 2016).</li></ul>
</div>
<p><strong>Participation in Events</strong></p>
<ul>
<li><a class="external-link" href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/rightscon-silicon-valley-2016">RightsCon Silicon Valley 2016</a> (Organized by RightsCon; March 31 and April 1, 2016). Elonnai Hickok attended the event.</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/panel-discussion-on-uid-aadhar-act-2016-and-its-impact-on-social-security">Panel Discussion on UID/ Aadhar act 2016 and its impact on Social, Security</a> (Organized by Students Christian Movement of India at SCM House; Bangalore; April 25, 2016). Sunil Abraham was a panelist.</li>
<li>The Centre for the Study of Law and Governance (CSLG), Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), organised a <a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/will-the-magic-number-deliver-aadhaar-cslg-26042016">roundtable discussion on Tuesday, April 26</a>, to discuss the Aadhaar project and Act. Along with Prasanna S, Apar Gupta, and Dr. Chirashree Dasgupta, Sumandro Chattapadhyay was one of the discussants.</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/aadhaar-by-numbers">Aadhaar by Numbers</a> (Organized by National Institute of Public Finance and Policy; New Delhi; April 29, 2016). Sunil Abraham was a speaker.</li></ul>
<div style="text-align: justify;"><strong>----------------------------------- <br /></strong><a href="http://cis-india.org/telecom">Telecom</a> <br /><strong> ----------------------------------- </strong><br /> CIS is involved in promoting access and accessibility to telecommunications services and resources, and has provided inputs to ongoing policy discussions and consultation papers published by TRAI. It has prepared reports on unlicensed spectrum and accessibility of mobile phones for persons with disabilities and also works with the USOF to include funding projects for persons with disabilities in its mandate:</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">Article</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<ul>
<li><a class="external-link" href="http://cis-india.org/telecom/blog/business-standard-april-6-2016-shyam-ponappa-breakthroughs-needed-for-digital-india">Breakthroughs Needed For Digital India</a> (Shyam Ponappa; Business Standard; April 6, 2016 and Organizing India BlogSpot; April 7, 2016).</li></ul>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;"><strong>----------------------------------- <br /></strong><a href="http://cis-india.org/raw">Researchers at Work</a> <br /><strong> ----------------------------------- </strong><br /> The Researchers at Work (RAW) programme is an interdisciplinary research initiative driven by an emerging need to understand the reconfigurations of social practices and structures through the Internet and digital media technologies, and vice versa. It aims to produce local and contextual accounts of interactions, negotiations, and resolutions between the Internet, and socio-material and geo-political processes:</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<p style="text-align: justify;"><strong>Article</strong></p>
<ul>
<li><a class="external-link" href="http://cis-india.org/raw/buying-into-the-aakash-dream">Buying into the Aakash Dream - A Tablet’s Tale of Mass Education</a> (Sumandro Chattapadhyay and Jahnavi Phalkey; Economic & Political Weekly; April 23, 2016). </li></ul>
</div>
<p>Announcement</p>
<ul>
<li><a class="external-link" href="http://cis-india.org/jobs/call-for-proposal-big-data-for-development-field-studies">Call for Proposal: Big Data for Development – Initial Field Studies</a> (Sumandro Chattapadhyay; April 29, 2016).</li></ul>
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</div>
<p><strong>----------------------------------- </strong><br /><a href="http://cis-india.org/">About CIS</a> <br /><strong> ----------------------------------- </strong><br /> The Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) is a non-profit organisation that undertakes interdisciplinary research on internet and digital technologies from policy and academic perspectives. The areas of focus include digital accessibility for persons with diverse abilities, access to knowledge, intellectual property rights, openness (including open data, free and open source software, open standards, open access, open educational resources, and open video), internet governance, telecommunication reform, digital privacy, and cyber-security. The academic research at CIS seeks to understand the reconfigurations of social and cultural processes and structures as mediated through the internet and digital media technologies.</p>
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No publishersunilAccess to KnowledgeTelecomAccessibilityInternet GovernanceResearchers at Work2016-05-10T06:26:09ZPageTRAI Consultation on Differential Pricing for Data Services - Post-Open House Discussion Submission
https://cis-india.org/telecom/blog/trai-consultation-on-differential-pricing-for-data-services
<b>The Centre for Internet and Society sent this submission to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) following the Open House Discussion on Differential Pricing of Data Services, held in Delhi on February 21, 2016.</b>
<p> </p>
<h4>Download the submission document: <a href="https://github.com/cis-india/website/raw/master/docs/CIS_TRAI-Differential-Pricing_Submission_2015.01.25.pdf">PDF</a>.</h4>
<p> </p>
<h3>Post-Open House Discussion Submission to TRAI</h3>
<p> </p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Dear Ms. Kotwal,</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">This is to heartily congratulate TRAI once again for taking several steps, including the Open House Discussion, to ensure that various opinions about the topic of ‘differential pricing for data services’ are presented and are responded to - and are all in full public view.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">This brief note is to <strong>a)</strong> add to the positions and arguments submitted previously by the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS), India, <strong>b)</strong> put in writing our comments during the Open House Discussion (January 21, 2016), and <strong>c)</strong> respond to other comments shared at the same event. We have six points to share in this note:<br /><br /></p>
<ol style="text-align: justify;">
<li><strong>Forbearance is not an option</strong>: We are of the opinion that though the data services market has thus far been kept un-monitored and unregulated, and there are several reasons why this situation should not continue any more. Although the reality of differential pricing (that is data packets originating from different sources being priced differently by ISPs) was highlighted with the recent offering of zero rated packs, it is a general practice in the sector, as illustrated by widely available special/curated content packs for the user to consume data from a specified web-based source. It is not surprising that most such special/curated content packs involve an arrangement between the ISP and a prominent leader in the web-content/platform sector, such as Facebook and Twitter. Serious market distorting impacts of such arrangements are imminent if they are allowed to continue without any monitoring, enforced public disclosure, and regulatory actions by a public authority.<br /><br /></li>
<li><strong>Address differential treatment of data, and not only differential pricing</strong>: Pricing is only of the three ways in which data services can be treated differently by the ISPs depending upon the source of the data packets concerned. The other two ways are: a) differential speed, or throttling of some data packets and prioritisation of the others, and b) differential treatment of data protocols, for example, the blocking of peer-to-peer or voice-over-IP traffic by an ISP. If the public authority decides to only regulate differential pricing of data service, it is highly probable that ISPs may shift to other forms of discrimination between data packets - either in terms of prioritising some data packets over others based upon their origin, or blocking of specific protocols such as voice-over-IP to prevent the functioning of certain web-based services - and continue the market distorting impacts through these other means.<br /><br /></li>
<li><strong>Allow and define reasonable network management practices</strong>: Reasonable network management has to be allowed to enable the ISPs to manage performance on their network. However, ISPs may not indulge in acts that are harmful to users in the name of reasonable network management. Below is a set of potential guidelines to identify cases when discrimination against classes of data traffic in the name of reasonable network management can be considered justified and permissible:<br />
<ul><li>there is an intelligible differentia between the classes which are to be treated differently,</li>
<li>there is a rational nexus between the differential treatment and the aim of such differentiation,</li>
<li>the aim sought to be furthered is legitimate, and is related to the security, stability, or efficient functioning of the network, or is a technical limitation outside the control of the ISP, and</li>
<li>the network management practice is the least harmful technical means that is reasonably available to achieve the aim.</li><br /></ul>
</li>
<li><strong>Establish an effective enforcement mechanism</strong>: TRAI must establish an enforcement mechanism that is open to users [and groups of users] and private sector actors as current forums are insufficient. Clear and simple rules must be established ex-ante, if they are violated - ex-post regulation must be undertaken on the basis of principles listed in the TRAI consultation paper, that is “non-discrimination, transparency, affordable internet access, competition and market entry, and innovation” <a name="fr1">[1]</a><br /><br /></li>
<li><strong>Take regulatory decisions now, but also conduct and commission further research to review and refine the decisions over a defined period of time</strong><br /><br /></li>
<li><strong>Need for better collection and proactive disclosure of statistics</strong>: TRAI publishes quarterly performance indicators statistics collected from the telecom companies about telephone, mobile, and internet sectors in India <a name="fr2">[2]</a>. It will be very useful for researchers and analysts, and allow for a much more informed public debate on the matter, if the content and form of such data are improved in the following ways:<br />
<br /><strong>Content:</strong>
<ul>
<li>
<div style="text-align: justify;">Please start collection (unless already done) and publication of not only data of average incoming and outgoing MOUs, average of total outgoing SMSs, Average Revenue Per User, and average data usage per GSM and CDMA subscriber, but distributions of the same in terms of user deciles (that is in terms of representative figures for each 10% section of users in ascending order of usage),</div>
</li>
<li>
<div style="text-align: justify;">Provide granular data about data usage across service areas and service providers (the numbers on ‘average data usage’ and total ‘revenue from data usage’ provided at present are very insufficient for the state of public debate),</div>
</li>
<li>
<div style="text-align: justify;">Provide data about internet subscriber base according to network technologies (for both wired and wireless) and the service providers concerned,</div>
</li>
<li>
<div style="text-align: justify;">Provide data about IP-based telephony across service areas and service providers,</div>
</li>
<li>
<div style="text-align: justify;">Provide data separately for the North Eastern states, and</div>
</li>
<li>
<div style="text-align: justify;">Provide granular data (separated from the corresponding state data) for all tier-1 cities.</div>
</li></ul>
<br />
<p style="text-align: justify;"><strong>Form:</strong></p>
<ul>
<li>
<div style="text-align: justify;">Please do not publish the data only as part of the quarterly reports available in PDF format, but also as independent machine-readable spreadsheet file (preferably in CSV format),</div>
</li>
<li>
<div style="text-align: justify;">Do not only publish quarterly data in separate files, but also provide a combined (all quarters together) dataset that would make it much easier for researchers and analysts to use the data,</div>
</li>
<li>
<div style="text-align: justify;">In some exceptional cases, the data is not provided in the report directly but a diagram containing the data is published <a name="fr3">[3]</a>, which should be kindly avoided, and</div>
</li>
<li>
<div style="text-align: justify;">Please publish these statistics as open data, that is in open standards and under open licenses.<br /><br /></div>
</li></ul>
</li></ol>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Further, we request TRAI to explore possibilities of distributed sourcing of data, perhaps from the users themselves, about the actual network usage experiences, including but not limited to signal strength, data transfer speed (incoming and outgoing), frequency of switches between mobile (GSM and CDMA) and wi-fi connectivity, etc.</p>
<p> </p>
<h3>References</h3>
<p> </p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">[<a name="fn1">1</a>]. http://trai.gov.in/WriteReaddata/ConsultationPaper/Document/CP-Differential-Pricing-09122015.pdf.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">[<a name="fn2">2</a>]. http://www.trai.gov.in/Content/PerformanceIndicatorsReports/1_1_PerformanceIndicatorsReports.aspx.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">[<a name="fn3">3</a>]. http://www.trai.gov.in/WriteReadData/PIRReport/Documents/Performance_Indicator_Report_Jun_2015.pdf , sections 1.43 and 1.44 (pp. 31-32).</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/telecom/blog/trai-consultation-on-differential-pricing-for-data-services'>https://cis-india.org/telecom/blog/trai-consultation-on-differential-pricing-for-data-services</a>
</p>
No publishersumandroInternet AccessTRAINet NeutralityTelecomTRAI, OTTInternet Governance2016-03-30T13:13:30ZBlog EntryConnectivity: Let's Apply What We Know
https://cis-india.org/telecom/blog/connectivity-lets-apply-what-we-know
<b>Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it - George Santayana. Reprise good decisions, and avoid the missteps.</b>
<p>The Op-ed was published in <a class="external-link" href="http://www.business-standard.com/article/opinion/shyam-ponappa-connectivity-let-s-apply-what-we-know-116030201032_1.html">Business Standard</a> on March 2 and cross-posted on <a class="external-link" href="http://organizing-india.blogspot.in/2016/03/connectivity-lets-apply-what-we-know.html">Organizing India BlogSpot</a> on March 3.</p>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Past decisions deserve scrutiny when we can learn from them. The Budget expects about Rs 75,000 crore from spectrum auctions. What will be gained and lost? A study by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) in 2005 has some pointers for policies going forward. These relate to decisions that enabled the proliferation of mobile telephony between 2003 and 2011. Other decisions had less salutary outcomes, which we would do well to recognise and avoid. Reviewing some of these could influence supportive policies, resulting in industry growth with enhanced user benefits and government revenues.<br /><br /> <strong>1. Reasonable fees increase govt revenues</strong><br /><br /> The TRAI report cited below states that as a consequence of the New Telecom Policy 1999's (NTP-99's) shift to revenue sharing for licence fees and spectrum usage charges, government revenues soared. Collections through March 2007 greatly exceeded the auction payment commitments of Rs 19,314 that were given up.<br /><br /> The NTP-99 stirred controversy because of this opportunity loss, as a suspected sellout to the private sector. However, government collections actually turned out to be much higher through revenue sharing. Operators did indeed benefit, but for a good reason: explosive growth in mobile services. Users also benefited immensely through the rapid spread of widely accessible services at relatively low cost, as did government revenues.<br /><br /> In the chart below, the second column shows the auction fees foregone through March 2007 after adopting the NTP-99, amounting to Rs 19,314 crore. The third column shows annual government revenues collected, while the fourth column shows cumulative government collections. Compared to the opportunity cost of auction revenues foregone of Rs 19,314 crore, government collections by March 2007 amounted to over Rs 40,000 crore, more than double the "loss". With revenue sharing, collections did not stop in March 2007, and by March 2010 were nearly Rs 80,000 crore, or four times the "loss". By March 2015, the "loss" had been made up by more than eight times, by collecting over Rs 1.6 lakh crore.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><img src="https://cis-india.org/home-images/Spectrum.jpg" alt="Spectrum" class="image-inline" title="Spectrum" /></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Sources<br />Column 1 - 1999-00 to 2006-07:Indicators for Telecom Growth, Study Paper No. 2/2005,TRAI:<a href="http://trai.gov.in/Content/StudyPaperDescription/ShowPDF.aspx?LNK_PATH=WriteReaddata/StudyPaper/Document/ir30june.pdf">http://trai.gov.in/Content/StudyPaperDescription/ShowPDF.aspx?LNK_PATH=WriteReaddata/StudyPaper/Document/ir30june.pdf</a>Columns 2 & 3 – 2002-03 to 2009-10:Peformance Audit Report on the Issue of Licences and Allocation of 2G Spectrum by the Department of Telecommunications, CAG:<a href="http://www.performance.gov.in/sites/default/files/departments/telecom/CAG%20Report%202009-10.pdf">http://www.performance.gov.in/sites/default/files/departments/telecom/CAG Report 2009-10.pdf</a>Columns 2 & 3 – 2010-11 to 2014-15 are from the TRAI web site:<a href="http://www.trai.gov.in/Content/PerformanceIndicatorsReports/1_1_PerformanceIndicatorsReports.aspx">http://www.trai.gov.in/Content/PerformanceIndicatorsReports/1_1_PerformanceIndicatorsReports.aspx</a><br /><br /> In hindsight, a combination of policies, market structure/competition, and technology resulted in enormous growth, much higher government collections, and tremendous user benefits. A key impetus was the adoption of the high-volume-low-margin approach of Henry Ford's "Model-T" strategy. This principle is an essential ingredient for achieving Digital India.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><span><strong>2. Unenforced regulations lead to chaos</strong></span><br /><span><strong><br /></strong></span> <span>In our conditions of deficit infrastructure with constrained capital, the need for collaborative access to capital-intensive resources cannot be sufficiently emphasised. It's either that or do without the connectivity, as we've had to so far.</span></p>
<div style="float: left; "></div>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><span>Until around 1999-2000, only GSM technology was permitted in India for mobile telephony (Global System for Mobile Communications, originally Groupe Special Mobile). Thereafter, CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access) technology was introduced for wireless last-mile connections. While CDMA was supposedly restricted to the so-called Wireless-Local-Loop or WLL in place of fixed-lines for basic telephony, ambivalence/laxity in the enforcement of stated policies and the extension of this technology to mobile services led to unending contention and protracted legal battles between GSM and CDMA operators. While users benefited from price wars resulting from overly intense competition, both industry and users suffered considerable opportunity losses, as broadband development was constrained by a hypercompetitive environment roiled by unrelenting conflict. The marketplace was simply not conducive to the extension and evolution of broadband networks, particularly for less dense rural markets, so connectivity and services suffered.</span><br /><span><br /></span> <span>Although several operators negotiated a degree of resource-sharing among themselves that was permitted, the industry couldn't converge on collaborative approaches to highly capital-intensive network building and service delivery, nor did the government devise supportive policies. Those in favour of unbridled market forces may approve of such intense competition. However, the cost of creating capacity and expanding networks is so prohibitive that, as a study on EU networks suggests, "as market conditions appear to be insufficient in most countries so far to trigger broad-scale NGA [Next Generation Access (Networks)] roll-outs in view of high investment requirements… and risks, identifying the right policy measures becomes crucial." It concludes, "public subsidies are the dominant policy alternative in white [unprofitable] areas, whereas access regulations can be the preferred policy in white or "grey" areas, where only monopoly structure or co-investment models lead to private investment."</span><span>1</span><span> And this is for the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.</span><br /><span><br /></span> <span>The takeaway: good policies are essential, but are meaningful only if they are enforced. Otherwise, we all suffer the opportunity loss.</span><br /><span><br /></span> <strong><span>3. Global developments in sharing infrastructure</span></strong><br /><span><br /></span> <span>A major change globally has been a move towards sharing infrastructure. One motivator is broadband usage needs for greater capacity including for wireless delivery. The US pioneered a solution for better spectrum utilisation by permitting secondary sharing while primary holders retain rights of priority access. The FCC permitted commercial access to 150 megahertz in the 3550-3700 MHz band (3.5 GHz Band) in its ruling of April 17, 2015.<sup><span>2</span></sup> Work is under way in Europe on Licenced Shared Access, eg, in 2300-2400 MHz.</span><br /><span><br /></span> <span>Another motivator for sharing infrastructure has been the financial challenge of providing rural and suburban coverage. Shared networks enable more effective and efficient coverage through multiple operators in such markets. Operators save on capital and operating expenses, while gaining access and higher profit potential. For users, better services improve financial prospects, convenience, and access to services that are otherwise inaccessible, including in areas like health care, education and skills development, and government services. Network sharing equipment is now available to support multiple operators and technologies to make sharing a reality.</span><br /><span><br /></span> <span>We need to stop obstructing ourselves with our own rules. Our regulations must instead enable us to make the most of our capital and potential.</span></p>
<hr />
<p><i>1 "The Impact of Alternative Public Policies on the Deployment of New Communications Infrastructure - A Survey", Briglauer et al: </i><a href="http://ftp.zew.de/pub/zew-docs/dp/dp15003.pdf" target="_blank"><i>http://ftp.zew.de/pub/zew-docs/dp/dp15003.pdf</i></a><br /><i><br /></i><em>2 </em><span><span><i>Amendment of the Commission’s Rules with </i></span></span><i>Regard to Commercial Operations in the 3550-</i><br /><span><span><i>3650 MHz Band: </i></span></span><em><a href="https://apps.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/FCC-15-47A1.pdf" target="_blank">https://apps.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/FCC-15-47A1.pdf</a></em></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/telecom/blog/connectivity-lets-apply-what-we-know'>https://cis-india.org/telecom/blog/connectivity-lets-apply-what-we-know</a>
</p>
No publisherShyam PonappaTelecom2016-04-06T01:19:28ZBlog EntryIndia's ‘Facebook ruling’ is another nail in the coffin of the MNO model
https://cis-india.org/telecom/news/the-register-february-15-2016-india-facebook-ruling-is-another-nail-in-coffin-of-mno-model
<b>Ability to access 'net from mobe no longer considered a miracle.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The article was published in the <a class="external-link" href="http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/02/15/indias_facebook_ruling_is_another_nail_in_the_coffin_of_the_mno_model/">Register</a> on February 15, 2016. Pranesh Prakash gave inputs.</p>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Nobody could accuse India’s telecoms regulator, TRAI, of being in the operators’ pockets. This month it has, once again, set eye-watering reserve prices for the upcoming 700 MHz spectrum auction (see separate item), and now it has taken one of the toughest stances in the world on net neutrality, in effect banning zero rated or discounted content deals like Reliance Communications’ Facebook Basics, or Bharti Airtel’s Zero.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">In a ruling last Monday, TRAI said telecoms providers are banned from offering discriminatory tariffs for data services based on content, and from entering deals to subsidize access to certain websites. They have six months to wind down any existing arrangements which contravene the new rules. Its stance is even stricter than in other countries with strong pro-neutrality laws, such as Brazil and The Netherlands.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">“This is the most extensive and stringent regulation on differential pricing anywhere in the world,” Pranesh Prakash, policy director at the Centre for Internet and Society, said. “Those who suggested regulation in place of complete ban have clearly lost.”</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Such decisions, combined with high spectrum costs, will quickly make the traditional cellular business model unworkable in India, and the more that happens, the more wireless internet innovation will switch to open networks running on Wi-Fi and unlicensed spectrum. R.S. Sharma, chairman of TRAI, was careful to tell reporters that the zero rating ruling would not affect any plans to offer free Wi-Fi services, like those planned by Google in a venture with Indian Railways.</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">A disaster for MNOs, not Facebook</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; "> </p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Facebook pronounced itself “disappointed” at TRAI’s ruling, having lobbied aggressively for a more flexible approach since RCOM was forced to suspend the Basics offering in December while the consultation process took place. But while the ruling bars the Basics offering – which provided free, low speed access, on RCOM’s network, to a selection of websites, curated by Facebook – it does not stop the social media giant pursuing other initiatives within its internet.org umbrella. These include projects to extend access using its own networks, powered by drones and unlicensed spectrum, to the unserved of India and other emerging economies.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">So while the TRAI decision may be a setback for Facebook, it is not the body blow that it represents for the MNOs with their huge debt loads and infrastructure costs, and low ARPUs. Facebook, with 130m users in India, has a comparable reach to the Indian MNOs (only three, Bharti Airtel, Vodafone and Idea, have more subscribers than Facebook has users), and is better skilled at monetizing those consumers.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "> </p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The challenge for companies like Facebook is that strict neutrality rules reduce their ability to harness others’ networks in order to reach out to new users. There are about 240m people in India who are online, but don’t use Facebook, and about 800m who are not connected, so the growth potential is far larger than in the other 37 countries where Basics is offered, such as Kenya or Zambia (Facebook is blocked in China). Using RCOM’s network and marketing activities was a far cheaper way to reach some of those people than launching drones, but Facebook has other options too, including its existing efforts to make its services more usable on very basic handsets and connections; the ability to leverage the WhatsApp brand; and partnerships with Wi-Fi providers.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "> </p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The drones may have less immediate results than Basics, but they are a high profile example of an ongoing shift towards open networks, which has been going on for years, driven more by Wi-Fi proliferation than neutrality laws. The latter will be an accelerant, however.</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">All internet will be free, not zero rated</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Currently, zero rating is an increasingly popular tactic to lure users with an apparently cheap deal and then, hopefully, see them upgrade to richer data plans, or spend money on m-commerce and premium content, in future. Zero rating involves allowing users access to selected websites and services without it affecting their data caps or allowances.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The US regulator has so far tolerated the practice, but the debate is raging, there and elsewhere, over whether it infringes neutrality laws, by offering different pricing for different internet services. If other authorities take the stance adopted by TRAI in India, operators will have to find new ways to attract customers and differentiate themselves.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Increasingly, access to a truly open internet will be the baseline, and priced extremely low. That low pricing will be made commercially viable by rising use of Wi-Fi to reduce cost of data delivery, whether for MNOs, wireline providers or web players like Google and Facebook, which are moving into access provision. Providers, whether traditional or new, will have to stop regarding access to the internet as a premium service or a privilege – it will be more akin to connecting someone to the electricity grid, just the base enabler of the real revenue model.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Just as it’s only when users plug something into that grid that they start to pay fees, so the operators will charge for higher value offerings which ride on top of the internet – premium content, enterprise services, cloud storage, freemium applications and so on.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The mobile operators have not embraced these ideas willingly. For years, the ability to access the internet from a mobile device was regarded as a value-add, almost a miracle. Now that the wireless network is often the primary access method, they need to change their ideas and be more like the smarter cablecos – which have tacked internet access onto a model driven by paid-for content and services – or the web giants, which have worked out ways to monetize ‘free’ access, from advertising to big data.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">This, of course, is one of the goals of internet.org and Google’s similar initiatives involving drones, white space spectrum and satellites. The more users are able to access the internet, preferably for free, and the more they see Google or Facebook as their primary conduits to the web, the more data these companies have to feed into their deep learning platforms, their context aware services and their advertising and big data engines.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">So while critics of TRAI said the zero rating decision was a setback to the goal of getting internet access into the hands of the huge underserved population of India, that population is too large and potentially rich for Facebook and its rivals to give up at the first hurdle.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg wrote in a blog post: "While we're disappointed with today's decision, I want to personally communicate that we are committed to keep working to break down barriers to connectivity in India and around the world. Internet.org has many initiatives, and we will keep working until everyone has access to the internet."</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/telecom/news/the-register-february-15-2016-india-facebook-ruling-is-another-nail-in-coffin-of-mno-model'>https://cis-india.org/telecom/news/the-register-february-15-2016-india-facebook-ruling-is-another-nail-in-coffin-of-mno-model</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaSocial MediaTelecomFree BasicsTRAIInternet GovernanceFreedom of Speech and Expression2016-02-28T03:44:34ZNews ItemBottled-Up National Assets
https://cis-india.org/telecom/blog/shyam-ponappa-business-standard-february-3-2016-bottled-up-national-assets
<b>Apply electronic toll collection systems to roads, and adapt road network concepts in organizing and managing communications networks.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The article was published in the <a class="external-link" href="http://www.business-standard.com/article/opinion/shyam-ponappa-bottled-up-national-assets-116020301314_1.html">Business Standard </a>on February 3, 2016 and also mirrored on <a class="external-link" href="http://organizing-india.blogspot.in/2016/02/bottled-up-national-assets.html">Organizing India BlogSpot </a>on February 4, 2016.</p>
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<p style="text-align: justify; ">The productivity bottled up in assets in this country is mind boggling. The catch is that to be unleashed, the systems in which these assets are embedded must function effectively.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Take the road network. A study of Delhi-Mumbai truck traffic by Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta (IIM-C) and Transport Corporation of India in 2012 reported an average speed of just over 21 km per hour. Of 18 stops, 16 were to pay tolls manually with average delays of 10 minutes, constituting 80 per cent of total stoppage time. The study estimated that delays cost the economy Rs 27,000 crore ($5.5 billion at the time), with the additional fuel consumption estimated at Rs 60,000 crore ($12 billion at the time).</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The Indian Highways Management Company Limited, set up in 2012, was tasked with implementing electronic toll collection (ETC) systems. It began with ICICI Bank, then added Axis Bank. ETC was introduced on the Delhi-Mumbai expressway in 2014. A dedicated ETC lane across the country was to have been completed by 2014, then 2015; perhaps it will be ready in some months. But, for full efficiency gains, the entire traffic flow needs ETC, not just a small segment. Also, anomalies such as the unwillingness of sections of the populace to pay tolls, or for political parties to exploit these tendencies, will need to be "sorted out". In effect, similar criteria will operate as in electricity distribution networks: Users must either pay for services - directly or with the help of subsidies, or forego infrastructure services of reasonable quality. If there is no enforcement of rules (quality service-supply and payment-collection), there will be a shoddy mess.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The underlying expressways already exist, but installing these systems require effort and investment. Imagine the productivity gains and reduced pollution if vehicles going through over 370 toll plazas in India don't have to stop, wait for 10 minutes on average to pay tolls, then accelerate back to cruising speed.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Inter-City Road Network Organisation</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">An important feature of the way road networks are organised and managed is the concept of common-pool resources, i.e., all public roads that do not require special tolls are part of a common pool, and are accessible to anyone who pays road taxes for the vehicle used. Another strength is that controlled-access roads with tolls connect to the rest of the road network. (There are negative aspects such as state registration, whereby states collect high fees for re-registering a vehicle on a change of domicile, but our focus here is on strengths).</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Extending Similar Concepts to Communications</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Now consider the infrastructure network of the communications system. Why don't we apply these beneficial aspects of operating our roads, namely, common-pool resources with access charges, to communications? There are several reasons, since transportation and communications have evolved in different ways. While they are customarily treated differently, these legacy issues can be resolved.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">In communications, spectrum bands were separated into one lot for broadcasting and another for telecommunications, which began with voice and now extends to data. Concerns about anticompetitive dominance in the US led to spectrum auctions in the 1990s, initially to prevent concentration of power in the hands of press barons-cum-broadcasters. The emphasis changed, however, to embellishing government treasuries, barring exceptions as in the public-spirited Nordic countries, Japan,1 and China. In India, events following the 2G scam and a war-of-attrition death spiral in politics have resulted in a paroxysm of righteous inability to take a long-term view, which is a prerequisite for making constructive policy choices. But, as the economy stalls and dark days loom, perhaps the political and administrative leaders will muster the courage to understand our predicament and find a way to get off the beaten track leading to a morass.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">We have economic uncertainty, a burgeoning working-age population that could either contribute to supply-and-demand or to disorder, high interest rates, and a heavily over-leveraged communications sector. The indebtedness is aggravated by previous spectrum auctions and constrained reach. Inadequate connectivity limits not only opportunity, but service provision and revenue potential.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The sector's urgent need is for more spectrum at less cost. More countries are pooling communications infrastructure including spectrum. Australia, Denmark, Spain, the UK, Sweden, and latterly, Brazil, Colombia and Mexico have different levels of shared infrastructure including spectrum (see chart below).2 Mexico is deploying a countrywide wholesale network using 700 MHz (megahertz). In India, restrictive regulations hinder effective spectrum sharing.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><img src="https://cis-india.org/home-images/c1.jpg/@@images/951e15b4-a9cd-4e31-bdbc-565c5ad1d546.jpeg" alt="c1" class="image-inline" title="c1" /></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">“In Latin America passive sharing has been the preferred approach, with Tower Cos. playing a key role…”</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><img src="https://cis-india.org/home-images/c2.jpg/@@images/0c186bb2-d206-4cca-82da-f08488fd8a59.jpeg" alt="c2" class="image-inline" title="c2" /></p>
<p style="text-align: left; "><span>Source: </span><span>Daniel Leza-TMGTelecom-12 March 2014: </span><a href="https://www.itu.int/en/ITU-D/Regulatory-Market/Documents/CostaRica/Presentations/Session8_Daniel%20Leza%20-%20Mobile%20Infrastructure%20Sharing%20-%2012%20March%202014.pdf"><span>https://www.itu.int/en/ITU-D/Regulatory-Market/Documents/CostaRica/Presentations/Session8_Daniel%20Leza%20-%20Mobile%20Infrastructure%20Sharing%20-%2012%20March%202014.pdf</span></a></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Studies by Columbia University and the Indian Institute of Science affirm that pooling infrastructure can maximise total returns as well as for individual operators, while users gain enormous benefits.3,4 The studies' apprehensions, regarding trust, willingness to cooperate, and transparency, would not arise if there were mandated pooling through consortiums of operators and the government, and charges based on metering.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">A change in regulations alone could mandate that all existing spectrum and networks be freely shared for roaming, depending on capacity and efficiency. Second, unused spectrum, for example, in the 500-800 MHz band, could be made available for secondary sharing to operators paying for metered use. Shared control in consortiums, including the government, would ensure transparency. Similarly, government spectrum could be secondarily shared. Tax collections would increase with additional revenues, as they did dramatically after 2003, when reasonable revenue-sharing rates were introduced for licence fees. USO funds could subsidise rural delivery where necessary for ubiquitous access.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Instead, if we continue with auctions, the 700 MHz band where range and penetration could reduce costs by 70 per cent may remain untouched, because a countrywide five MHz block could cost Rs 55,000 crore, almost a third of industry revenues.</p>
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<ol>
<li>"Spectrum Auction Strategy - Canada vs Japan", Lars Cosh-Ishii, August 7, 2013: <a href="http://wirelesswatch.jp/2013/08/07/spectrum-auction-strategy-canada-vs-japan/" target="_blank">http://wirelesswatch.jp/2013/08/07/spectrum-auction-strategy-canada-vs-japan/</a>; <span>[Added later: <span>Japan telecommunications market, February 2016</span></span><br /><span><span><a href="http://www.eurotechnology.com/insights/telecom/">http://www.eurotechnology.com/insights/telecom/</a>]</span></span></li>
<li><span><span>"Mobile Infrastructure Sharing": <a href="https://www.itu.int/en%20/ITU-D/Regulatory-Market/Documents/CostaRica/%20Presentations/Session8_Daniel%20Leza%20-%20Mobile%20Infrastructure%20Sharing%20-%2012%20March%202014.pdf" target="_blank">https://www.itu.int/en /ITU-D/Regulatory-Market/Documents/CostaRica/ Presentations/Session8_Daniel Leza - Mobile Infrastructure Sharing - 12 March 2014.pdf</a></span></span></li>
<li><span><span>"A coalitional game model for spectrum pooling in wireless data access networks", Saswati Sarkar, Chandramani Singh, Anurag Kumar, 2008: <a href="http://repository.upenn.edu/ese%20_papers%20/490" target="_blank">http://repository.upenn.edu/ese _papers /490</a></span></span></li>
<li><span><span>"Cooperative Profit Sharing in Coalition Based Resource Allocation in Wireless Networks", Chandramani Singh, Saswati Sarkar, Alireza Aram, Anurag Kumar, 2012: <a href="http://www.ece.iisc.ernet.in/Rs%20anurag/papers/anurag/singh-etal11cooperative-resource-allocation.pdf" target="_blank">http://www.ece.iisc.ernet.in/Rs anurag/papers/anurag/singh-etal11cooperative-resource-allocation.pdf</a><br /><br /></span></span></li>
</ol>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/telecom/blog/shyam-ponappa-business-standard-february-3-2016-bottled-up-national-assets'>https://cis-india.org/telecom/blog/shyam-ponappa-business-standard-february-3-2016-bottled-up-national-assets</a>
</p>
No publisherShyam PonappaTelecom2016-03-02T02:21:37ZBlog EntryA Megacorp’s Basic Instinct
https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/outlook-february-8-2016-arindam-mukherjee-a-megacorps-basic-instinct
<b>Bolstered by academia and civil society, TRAI stands its ground against FB’s Free Basics publicity blitz.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The article by Arindam Mukherjee was <a class="external-link" href="http://www.outlookindia.com/article/a-megacorps-basic-instinct/296510">published in Outlook</a> on February 8, 2016. Sunil Abraham was quoted.</p>
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<p style="text-align: justify; ">Hours before the January 31 deadline for telecom regulator TRAI to give its opinion on Facebook’s controversial and expensive Free Basics pitch—which seeks to give India’s poor “free” access to certain partner websites—the consensus seems to be building up against the social media giant. “If there is cannibalising of the internet through services like Free Basics, the internet will be split; it will parcel out and slice the internet. Its future is at stake,” says a senior government official on condition of anonymity.<br /><br />In a climate where the tech-savvy Modi government is seen to be close to the online trinity of Facebook, Google and Twitter, TRAI’s defiant stance in favour of net neutrality stands out. There’s a lot at stake. India’s position becomes crucial as few countries in the world have clearly defined laws on net neutrality or have taken a stand on it. For Facebook, there’s a lot more at stake. India is its second-largest user base after the US (it is banned in China), so it is leaving no stone unturned. The massive Rs 300-crore electronic and print media campaign is an indication of that.<br /><br />TRAI sources say they are ready for any adverse onslaught and they are under no pressure from the PMO. The view gaining ground in government is that FB is trying to create a walled garden where it controls what people see and surf and what they can access online. While this will be offered to consumers for free—the technical term is differential pricing—the websites part of Free Basics will have to pay for being on the platform. Outlook’s queries to FB remained unanswered at the time of going to press.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">At an ‘open house’ meeting to discuss TRAI’s consultation paper on differential pricing last week, regulator Ram Sevak Sharma stood firm against the barrage of pro-Free Basics opinions that flowed from FB, telecom operators and some members of the public. TRAI’s message was clear: FB’s tactics of moulding public opinion by stealth will not be acceptable in India. In the past few weeks, there have been bitter exchanges between TRAI and FB over the latter’s responses to a consultation paper on differential pricing.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">TRAI’s defiant stand draws from an unprecedented show of strength by civil society against Free Basics and FB’s intentions. Says former Aadhar man Nandan Nilekani, “Free Basics is certainly against net neutrality. How can a solution be neutral, if it disproportionately benefits a particular website or business on the internet? Today, 400 million Indians are online. They came online because of the inherent value the internet offers. How can a walled garden of 100-odd websites provide the same value?”</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">What does Free Basics mean for PM Modi’s Digital India campaign? Being a walled garden, thousands of start-ups without adequate budgets to pay for such dedicated service will be forced to stay out of it. Similar questions are being raised about government services that are increasingly coming online. The concern is that all government traffic will have to pass through FB servers. The senior government official quoted above agrees, “In such a scenario, the government will have to approach FB to make its websites accessible on the free service which is neither desirable nor safe.”</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The other fear is what happens to public data if it goes through a service like Free Basics. There is fear that a lot of government and public data will be put through Free Basics once government services start coming online. If Free Basics is for the poor who are also beneficiaries of government services, FB too can access this data. Says Prabir Purkayastha, chairman, Knowledge Commons, “FB says public service will be available through Free Basics but can public service be given through a private initiative? Public data is valuable and can’t be handed over to a private company.”</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Few again are convinced by FB’s claim that Free Basics aims to make the internet accessible to the poor, with the many services offered through it. “The claim that the poor will get access to the internet is false,” warns Sunil Abraham, executive director, Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore. “Free Basics gives access to less than 100 of the one billion plus websites on the world wide web. Those in the walled garden will be treated quite differently.”</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">What gives TRAI a shot in the arm is that, for the first time, academia has put its weight behind Free Basics opponents. In a signed statement, several IIT and IISc Bangalore professors have said that Free Basics won’t serve the purpose FB is proposing and is not good for the country. “The problem is the internet being provided (via Free Basics) is a shrunken and sanitised version of the real thing. Free Basics is not a good proposal for the long-term development of a healthy and democratic internet setup in India,” says Amitabha Bagchi, IIT Delhi professor and one of the signatories to the memo.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Of course, many of the experts <i>Outlook</i> spoke to say that the government, and not FB, should be responsible for providing free internet to the people. Says Parminder Jeet Singh, executive director, IT for Change, “The government is sitting on Rs 40,000 crore of USO funds. It can surely utilise that to provide a free basic data package to people in India. Basic government services and emergency services should essentially be free.” Nilekani is also in favour of the government providing free internet to people. “The internet is a powerful poverty alleviation tool.... Government can do a direct benefit transfer for data, a more market-neutral way of achieving the goal of getting everyone on the internet,” he told <i>Outlook</i>.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Legally, though, there may be issues in stopping FB from introducing its Free Basics platform in India. Says Singh, “Technically, the Indian government may not be able to stop FB from introducing Free Basics in India as it is just a platform. What the government has to do is to stop telcos from collaborating with it for free internet because Indian telcos, not FB, mediate access to the internet.”</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The demand for the government and TRAI to come clean on net neutrality has reached fever pitch. Experts like Nilekani feel that net neutrality, which does not allow zero rating and differential pricing based on telcos looking at the contents of the subscriber’s data packets, should be enshrined in law through an act of Parliament, the way countries like the US have done. TRAI has also proposed two models where the internet is provided free initially and charged at a later stage and another where content providers and websites reimburse the cost of browsing directly to consumers. Both these proposals have not found favour with experts who say that these are unworkable and only the government should disburse free internet.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">In any case, all this is a matter of detail—important, no doubt. The key question is, what happens to Free Basics if TRAI rules in favour of net neutrality and goes against FB? “This is going to be a long-drawn-out battle as FB will certainly challenge this in court,” says the government official. After spending Rs 300 crore on publicity, there is no way it will roll over and die.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/outlook-february-8-2016-arindam-mukherjee-a-megacorps-basic-instinct'>https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/outlook-february-8-2016-arindam-mukherjee-a-megacorps-basic-instinct</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaSocial MediaTelecomFree BasicsTRAINet NeutralityFreedom of Speech and ExpressionInternet Governance2016-02-04T13:53:05ZNews Item