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Response to TRAI Consultation Paper on Broadband Connectivity and Speed
https://cis-india.org/telecom/blog/response-to-trai-consultation-paper-on-broadband-connectivity-and-speed
<b>CIS comments on Telecom Regulatory Authority of India’s Consultation Paper on Roadmap to Promote Broadband Connectivity and Enhanced Broadband Speed</b>
<p id="docs-internal-guid-0fc8ed5b-7fff-6775-3415-d08d4d378b68" dir="ltr">This submission presents a response by individuals working at the Centre for Internet & Society (CIS) to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India’s Consultation Paper on Roadmap to Promote Broadband Connectivity and Enhanced Broadband Speed (hereinafter, the “TRAI Consultation Paper”) released on 20 August, 2020 for comments.</p>
<p dir="ltr">CIS appreciates the continual efforts of Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) to have consultations, and is grateful for the opportunity to put forth its views and comments.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Read the response <a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/telecom/cis-trai-consultation-response-broadband">here</a>.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/telecom/blog/response-to-trai-consultation-paper-on-broadband-connectivity-and-speed'>https://cis-india.org/telecom/blog/response-to-trai-consultation-paper-on-broadband-connectivity-and-speed</a>
</p>
No publisherShyam PonappaBroadbandTelecomTRAI2020-12-20T08:43:20ZBlog EntryCIS Submission to TRAI Consultation Note on Model for Nation-wide Interoperable and Scalable Public Wi-Fi Networks
https://cis-india.org/telecom/blog/cis-submission-trai-note-on-interoperable-scalable-public-wifi
<b>This submission presents responses by the CIS on the Consultation Note on Model for Nation-wide Interoperable and Scalable Public Wi-Fi Networks published by the TRAI on November 15, 2016. Our analysis of the solution proposed in the Note, in brief, is that there is no need of a solution for non-existing interoperability problem for authentication and payment services for accessing public Wi-Fi networks. The proposed solution in this Note only adds to over-regulation in this sector, and does not incentivise new investment in the sector, but only establishes UIDAI and NPCI as the monopoly service providers for authentication and payment services.</b>
<p> </p>
<p>The comments were authored by Japreet Grewal, Pranesh Prakash, Sharath Chandra, Sumandro Chattapadhyay, Sunil Abraham, and Udbhav Tiwari, with expert comments from Amelia Andersdotter.</p>
<hr />
<h2>1. Preliminary</h2>
<p><strong>1.1.</strong> This submission presents responses by the Centre for Internet and Society (“CIS”) <strong>[1]</strong> on the <em>Consultation Note on Model for Nation-wide Interoperable and Scalable Public Wi-Fi Networks</em> (“the Note”) published by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (“TRAI”) on November 15, 2016 <strong>[2]</strong>.</p>
<p><strong>1.2.</strong> The CIS welcomes the effort undertaken by TRAI to map regulatory and other barriers to deployment of public Wi-Fi in India. We especially appreciate that TRAI has recognised <strong>[3]</strong> two key barriers to provision of public Wi-Fi networks identified and highlighted in our earlier response to the <em>Consultation Paper on Proliferation of Broadband through Public WiFi</em> <strong>[4]</strong>: 1) over regulation (including, licensing requirements, data retention, and Know Your Customer policy), and 2) paucity of spectrum <strong>[5]</strong>.</p>
<h2>2. General Responses</h2>
<p><strong>2.1.</strong> Before responding to the specific questions posed by the Note, we would like to make the following observations.</p>
<p><strong>2.2.</strong> There is no need of a solution for non-existing interoperability problem for authentication and payment services for accessing public Wi-Fi networks. The proposed solution in this Note only adds to over-regulation in this sector. The proposed solution does not incentivise new investment in the sector, but only establishes UIDAI and NPCI as the monopoly service providers for authentication and payment services.</p>
<p><strong>2.3.</strong> As the TRAI has consulted widely with industry and other stakeholders before it settled on the list of priority issues contained in Section C.6 of the Note, we are surprised to find that this Note aims to address only the problem of lack of “seamless interoperable payment system for Wi-Fi networks” (Section C.6.d. Of the Note), and does not discuss and propose solutions for any other key barriers identified by the Note.</p>
<p><strong>2.4.</strong> The Note fails to clarify the “interoperability” problem in the payment system for usage of public Wi-Fi networks that it is attempting to solve. The Note identifies that lack of “single standard” for “authentication and payment mechanisms” for accessing public Wi-Fi networks as a key impediment to provide scalable and interoperable public Wi-Fi networks across the country <strong>[6]</strong>. By conceptualising the problem in this manner, TRAI has bundled together two completely different concerns - authentication and payment - into one and this is at the root of the problems emanating from the proposed solution in this Note.</p>
<p><strong>2.5.</strong> Lack of standard process for authentication is created by over-regulation via Know Your Customer (“KYC”) policies, and selection of eKYC service provided by UIDAI as the only acceptable authentication mechanism for all users of public Wi-Fi networks across India, creating further economic and legal challenges for smaller would-be providers of public Wi-Fi networks as they assess their liabilities and start-up costs. Additionally, since this would amount to making UID/Aadhaar enrolment mandatory for any user of public wi-fi networks, it seems to create a contradiction with previously communicated policy from the UIDAI and the Government that no such obligation should arise. Supreme Court has also mandated over successive Orders that enrolment for UID/Aadhaar number should remain optional for the citizens and residents.</p>
<p><strong>2.6.</strong> As was observed by the respondents to the TRAI Consultation concluded earlier this year, there is no interoperability problem that needs to be solved regarding payments for accessing public Wi-Fi networks. Payment services continue to be evolved and payment aggregator services provided by existing companies may be expected to resolve many of the outstanding issues of service proliferation in the upcoming years, at least in the absence of additional mandatory technical measures imposed by the government. Bundling of payment with authentication will only undermine the already existing independent market for payment aggregators, and further enforce mandatoriness of UID/Aadhaar number.</p>
<p><strong>2.7.</strong> Further, the payment mechanism proposed would seem to worsen difficulties for tourists and foreigners in accessing public Wi-Fi in India, as well adds an additional layer of authentication in a system already identified (even in the Note itself) to be overburdened by regulations regarding KYC and data retention. Section C.6.b of the Note highlights the problems faced by foreigners and tourists when the authentication mechanism is premised upon use of One Time Password (OTP) that requires a functioning local mobile phone number. It contradicts itself later by proposing an authentication method that requires the user to not only download an application onto their mobile/desktop device, but also to enrol for UID/Aadhaar number and/or to use their existing UID/Aadhaar number. Instead of reducing the existing barriers to provision of and access to public Wi-Fi, which the Note is supposed to achieve, it creates significant new barriers.</p>
<p><strong>2.8.</strong> The technological architecture advanced by the Note upholds support of governance and surveillance projects that, in addition to being costly in their implementation and thereby slowing down the objective of getting India connected, are also of questionable value to the security of the Indian polity. UID, UPI, and related projects risk undermining cyber-security through their reliance on centralised architectures and interfere with healthy competitive market dynamics between commercial and non-commercial actors.</p>
<p><strong>2.9.</strong> The Note continues to only consider and enable commercial models for the provision of public Wi-Fi networks. We have identified this as a problematic assumption in our last submission <strong>[7]</strong>. It is most crucial that TRAI does not ignore and fail to promote and facilitate the possibility of not-for-profit models that involve grassroot communities, academia, and civil society.</p>
<p><strong>2.10.</strong> Last but not the least, the term “Wi-Fi” refers to a particular technology for establishing wireless local area networks. Further, the term is a trademark of the Wi-Fi Alliance <strong>[8]</strong>. It is this not a neutral term, and it must not be used as a general and universal synonym for wireless local area networks. We recommend that TRAI may consider using a technology-neutral term, say “public wireless services” or “public networking services”, to describe the sector. Following the terminology used in the Note, we have decided to continue using the term “Wi-Fi” in this response. This does not reflect our agreement about the appropriateness of this term. Important: The recommendation for technology-neutral regulation also comes with the qualification that safeguards like regulations on Listen Before Talk and Cycle Time are required to prevent technologies like LTE-U from squatting on spectrum and interfering with connections based on other standards.</p>
<h2>3. Specific Responses</h2>
<h4>Q1. Is the architecture suggested in the consultation note for creating unified authentication and payment infrastructure will enable nationwide standard for authentication and payment interoperability?</h4>
<p><strong>3.1.</strong> No. The proposed infrastructure is likely to be costly for a large number of actors to implement and undermine some of the ongoing innovation in the Indian digital payment services industry. Rather than being helpful, it risks introducing additional requirements on an industry that TRAI has already identified as facing a number of large challenges.</p>
<p><strong>3.2.</strong> There is no need for a unified architecture that provides nationwide standard for authentication and payment interoperability. It does not offer any incentive towards provision of public Wi-Fi networks. Neither is there an interoperability problem at the physical or data link layers that has been pointed out, nor is government mandated interoperability required at the payment or ID layer since there are private entities that provide such interoperability (like, payment aggregators). Additionally, we believe it is inappropriate that the TRAI is trying to predict the most suitable business/technological model for digital payments to be used for accessing commercial Wi-Fi networks. India has a booming online payments industry, and it must be allowed to evolve in an enabling regulatory environment that allow for competition and ensures responsible practices.</p>
<p><strong>3.3.</strong> The Note identifies several structural impediments to expansion of public Wi-Fi networks in India, namely paucity of backhaul connectivity infrastructure (Section C.6.a), Inadequate associated infrastructure to offer carrier grade Wi-Fi network (Section C.6.c), dependency of authentication mechanism on pre-existing (Indian) mobile phone connection (Section C.6.b), and limited availability of spectrum to be used for public Wi-Fi networks (Section C.6.e). All these are crucial concerns and none of them have been addressed by the architecture suggested in the Note.</p>
<h4>Q2. Would you like to suggest any alternate model?</h4>
<p><strong>3.4.</strong> Yes. The model proposed in the Note is likely to exclude several types of potential users (say, foreigners and tourists), and impose a single authentication and payment service provider for accessing public Wi-Fi networks, which may undermine both competition and security in the market for these services.</p>
<p><strong>3.5.</strong> Internationally, there are cities and regions (say, the city of Barcelona and the Catalonia region in Spain) where public Wi-Fi networks have been provided in a pervasive and efficient manner by taking a light regulatory approach that enables opportunities for potential providers to set up their own infrastructures and additionally have access to backhaul. Further, reducing legal requirements on authentication should be considered in place of government mandated technical architectures for authentication and payment. In particular, allowing for anonymous access to Public Wi-Fi or wireless connectivity would reduce both the administrative and the technical burden on potential providers at the hyper-local level, especially for providers whose main activity it is not, and cannot be, to provide internet services (say, event venues, malls, and shops).</p>
<p><strong>3.6.</strong> The CIS suggests the following steps towards conceptualising an “alternative model”:</p>
<ol><li>remove existing regulatory disincentives,<br /><br /></li>
<li>urgently explore policies to promote deployment of wired infrastructures in general, and to enable a larger range of actors, including local authorities, to invest in and deploy local infrastructures by reducing licensing requirements in particular,<br /><br /></li>
<li>examine spectrum requirements for provision of public Wi-Fi, and<br /><br /></li>
<li>provide incentives, such as allowing telecom service providers to share backhaul traffic over public Wi-Fi, and ways for telecom service providers to lower their costs if they also make Internet access available for free.</li></ol>
<h4>Q3. Can Public Wi-Fi access providers resell capacity and bandwidth to retail users? Is “light touch regulation” using methods such as “registration” instead of “licensing” preferred for them?</h4>
<p><strong>3.7.</strong> CIS holds that capacity and bandwidth are neither comparable to tangible goods nor to digital currency. They are a utility, and the provider of the utility has to accept that their customers use the utility in the way they see fit, even if that use entails sharing said capacity and bandwidth with downstream private persons or customers. Wi-Fi capabilities are currently a built-in standardised feature of all consumer routers. Any individual, community, or store with access to an internet connection and a consumer router could become a public Wi-Fi access provider at no additional cost to themselves, furthering the goals of the Indian government in its Digital India strategy to ensure public and universal access to the internet.</p>
<p><strong>3.8.</strong> In order to exploit the opportunities awarded by a large amount of entities in the Indian society potentially becoming Public Wi-Fi providers, TRAI should require neither registration nor licensing of these actors. Imposing administrative burdens on potential public Wi-Fi access providers creates legal uncertainty and will cause a lot of actors, who may otherwise contribute to the goals of Digital India, not to do so. This is particularly true for community organisers and citizens, who may not have access to legal assistance and therefore may avoid contributing to the goals of the government.</p>
<p><strong>3.9.</strong> Light touch regulation when it comes to both granting license to public Wi-Fi access providers as well as authentication of retail users, however, are needed not only as an exceptional practice for such instances but as a general practice in case of entities offering public Wi-Fi services, either commercially or otherwise. Further, additional laxity in administrative responsibilities is needed to incentivise provision of free, that is non-commercial, public Wi-Fi networks.</p>
<h4>Q4. What should be the regulatory guidelines on “unbundling” Wi-Fi at access and backhaul level?</h4>
<p><strong>3.10.</strong> The Note refers to unbundling of activities related to provision of Wi-Fi but it does not define the term. It is neither explained which specific activities at access and backhaul levels must be considered for unbundling.</p>
<p><strong>3.11.</strong> While unbundling should clearly be allowed and any regulatory hurdles to unbundling should be removed, any such decision must be taken with a focus on urgently addressing the stagnated growth in landline and backhaul, as identified in Section C.6.a of the Note. Relying only on spectrum intensive infrastructures, such as mobile base stations, for providing connectivity, creates a heavy regulatory burden for the TRAI, while simultaneously not ensuring optimal connectivity for business and private users. The CIS is concerned that the focus of the Note on standardising a government-mediated authentication and payment mechanism detracts attention from this urgent obstacle to the fulfillment of the Digital India plans of accelerated provision of broadband highways, universal access, and public, especially free, access to internet services.</p>
<p><strong>3.12.</strong> From the example of European telecommunications legislations, implementation of policy measures to ensure that vertical integration between infrastructure (say, cables, switches, and hubs) providers and service (say, providing a subscriber with a household modem or a SIM card) providers in the telecommunications sector does not become a barrier to new market entrants has yielded much success in countries that have pursued it, like Sweden and Great Britain.</p>
<p><strong>3.13.</strong> Further, there should be no default assumption of bundling by the TRAI. In particular, the TRAI should consider reviewing all regulations that may cause bundling to occur when this is not necessary, and put in place in a monitoring mechanism for ensuring that bundled practises (especially in electronic networks, base station infrastructures, backhaul and similar) do not cause competitive problems or raise market entry barriers <strong>[9]</strong>. In most EU countries, especially where the corporate structure of incumbent(s) is not highly vertically integrated, interconnection requirements for electronic network providers of wired networks in the backhaul or backbone (effectively price regulated interconnection), and a conscious effort to ensure that new market players can enter the field, have ensured a competitive telecommunications environment. TRAI may consider reviewing the European regulation on local loop unbundling (1999) and discussions on functional separation (especially by the British regulatory authority Ofcom), within an Indian context.</p>
<h4>Q5. Whether reselling of bandwidth should be allowed to venue owners such as shop keepers through Wi-Fi at premise? In such a scenario please suggest the mechanism for security compliance.</h4>
<p><strong>3.14.</strong> Yes. Venue owners should be allowed to provide public Wi-Fi service both on a commercial and non-commercial basis.</p>
<p><strong>3.15.</strong> It is not clear from the Note and the question what type of security concerns the TRAI is seeking to address. In terms of payment security, the payment industry already has a large range of verification and testing mechanisms. The CIS objects to the mandatory introduction of the proposed payment system so as to ensure greater security for Wi-Fi access providers and the users.</p>
<p><strong>3.16.</strong> As far as hardware-related security issues are concerned, it is again unclear why consumer equipment compliant with existing Wi-Fi standards would not be sufficiently secure in the Indian context. Wi-Fi has proven to be a sturdy technical standard, its adoption is high in multiple jurisdictions around the world, and it also enjoys great technical stability. Similar security assessments could easily be made for alternative wireless technologies, such as WiMaX.</p>
<p><strong>3.17.</strong> The CIS foresees problems is in the allocation of risk and liability by law. The already existing legal obligation to verify the identity of each user, for instance, is likely to introduce a large administrative burden on potential Public Wi-Fi providers, which may lead to such potential providers abstaining from entering the market. Should the identification requirement be removed, however, other concerns pertaining to legal obligations may arise. These include liability for user activities on the web or on the internet (cf. copyright infringement, libel, hate speech). We propose a “safe harbour” mechanism in these cases, limiting the liability of the potential public Wi-Fi provider.</p>
<h4>Q6. What should be the guidelines regarding sharing of costs and revenue across all entities in the public Wi-Fi value chain? Is regulatory intervention required or it should be left to forbearance and individual contracting?</h4>
<p><strong>3.18.</strong> The market segments identified by the TRAI in Section F.18 of the Note should normally all be competitive markets themselves, and so do not require regulatory assistance in sharing of costs and revenues. The more elaborate the requirements imposed on each actor of each market segment identified by the TRAI in Section F.18, the more costly the roll-out of public Wi-Fi is going to be for the market actors. Such a cost is not avoided by price regulation.</p>
<p><strong>3.19.</strong> The TRAI may instead consider introducing public funding for backhaul roll-out in remote areas, where the market is unlikely to engage in such roll-out on its own. Presently, some Indian states (such as Karnataka) are committing to public funding for wireless access in remote areas. The Union Government can assist such endeavours.</p>
<h2>Endnotes</h2>
<p><strong>[1]</strong> See: <a href="http://cis-india.org/">http://cis-india.org/</a>.</p>
<p><strong>[2]</strong> See: <a href="http://trai.gov.in/Content/ConDis/20801_0.aspx">http://trai.gov.in/Content/ConDis/20801_0.aspx</a>.</p>
<p><strong>[3]</strong> See Section C.6 of the Note.</p>
<p><strong>[4]</strong> See: <a href="http://trai.gov.in/Content/ConDis/20782_0.aspx">http://trai.gov.in/Content/ConDis/20782_0.aspx</a>.</p>
<p><strong>[5]</strong> See: <a href="http://cis-india.org/telecom/blog/cis-submission-to-trai-consultation-on-proliferation-of-broadband-through-public-wifi-networks">http://cis-india.org/telecom/blog/cis-submission-to-trai-consultation-on-proliferation-of-broadband-through-public-wifi-networks</a>.</p>
<p><strong>[6]</strong> See Section E.11. of the Note.</p>
<p><strong>[7]</strong> See: <a href="http://cis-india.org/telecom/blog/cis-submission-to-trai-consultation-on-proliferation-of-broadband-through-public-wifi-networks">http://cis-india.org/telecom/blog/cis-submission-to-trai-consultation-on-proliferation-of-broadband-through-public-wifi-networks</a>.</p>
<p><strong>[8]</strong> See: <a href="https://www.wi-fi.org/">https://www.wi-fi.org/</a>.</p>
<p><strong>[9]</strong> See: Monitoring bundled products in the telecommunications sector is also recommended by the OECD: <a href="http://oecdinsights.org/2015/06/22/triple-and-quadruple-play-bundles-of-communication-services-towards-all-in-one-packages/">http://oecdinsights.org/2015/06/22/triple-and-quadruple-play-bundles-of-communication-services-towards-all-in-one-packages/</a>.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/telecom/blog/cis-submission-trai-note-on-interoperable-scalable-public-wifi'>https://cis-india.org/telecom/blog/cis-submission-trai-note-on-interoperable-scalable-public-wifi</a>
</p>
No publisherJapreet Grewal, Pranesh Prakash, Sharath Chandra, Sumandro Chattapadhyay, Sunil Abraham, and Udbhav Tiwari, with expert comments from Amelia AndersdotterDigital PaymentPublic Wireless NetworkTRAIInternet GovernanceTelecomFeaturedAadhaarHomepageUID2016-12-12T13:59:00ZBlog EntryNet subs grow significantly but public Wi-Fi idea flayed
https://cis-india.org/telecom/news/indian-television-november-21-2016-net-subs-grow-significantly-but-public-wifi-idea-delayed
<b>Even as internet subscribers are growing significantly across Indian states, TRAI's idea of public Wi-Fi has been flayed by stakeholders.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">This was <a class="external-link" href="http://www.indiantelevision.com/regulators/trai/net-subs-grow-significantly-but-public-wi-fi-idea-flayed-161121">published by Indian Television</a> on November 21, 2016. Pranesh Prakash was quoted.</p>
<hr style="text-align: justify; " />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Maharashtra has recorded the highest number of internet subscribers in India at 29.47 million, followed by Tamil Nadu, Andhra and Karnataka in that order, according to government data. At the end of March 2016, India had a total of 342.65 million subscribers. BharatNet project meantime plans to connect all 2.5 lakh gram panchayats in the country through broadband.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Delhi had registered 20.59 million internet users, while Kolkata and Mumbai recorded 9.26 million and 15.65 million, respectively.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Tamil Nadu recorded 28.01 million subscribers, while the neighbouring states of Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka respectively registered 24.87 million and 22.63 million. Himachal Pradesh saw the lowest number of subscribers at 3.02 million.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Of the over 342 million subscribers, over 67 per cent are from urban India. At the end of FY16, the rural internet subscriber base stood at 111.94 million. Tamil Nadu recorder the highest number of urban subscribers at 21.16 million, while UP (East) telecom circle is ahead in terms of rural internet customer base at 11.21 million.</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Public Wi-Fi condemned</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Telecom stakeholders recommending an open and cheap internet have raised concerns over privacy and regulatory hurdles following the release of TRAI's consultation paper on public Wi-Fi.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The Internet Freedom Foundation co-founder Aravind Ravi Sulekha was apprehensive that the proposed regulations could lead to invasion of privacy and interfere with the freedom of hotspot providers to operate freely. The proposals may turn out to be regressive, Sulekha said.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">TRAI proposed hotspot providers would have to register with the government and users could access hotspots only after paying using a service tied to their Aadhaar number.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Centre for Internet and Society policy director Pranesh Prakash said that TRAI solution was a classic example of over-regulation and centralism. It turns out that TARI was unclear about the problem to be solved, he added.</p>
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For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/telecom/news/indian-television-november-21-2016-net-subs-grow-significantly-but-public-wifi-idea-delayed'>https://cis-india.org/telecom/news/indian-television-november-21-2016-net-subs-grow-significantly-but-public-wifi-idea-delayed</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaTelecomTRAI2016-11-21T13:55:18ZNews ItemResponses to Trai’s consultation paper on free data contain some good suggestions
https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/first-post-tech-2-august-15-2016-asheeta-regidi-responses-to-trai-consultation-paper-on-free-data-contain-some-good-suggestions
<b>Trai has announced that it will come up with a final consultation paper on ‘Free Data’, and also a pre-consultation paper on Net Neutrality by the end of this month.</b>
<p>The blog post by Asheeta Regidi was <a class="external-link" href="http://tech.firstpost.com/news-analysis/responses-to-trais-consultation-paper-on-free-data-contain-some-good-suggestions-329846.html">published by FirstPost's Tech 2</a> on August 15, 2016.</p>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The <a href="http://www.trai.gov.in/Content/ConDis/20773_0.aspx" rel="nofollow"><b>pre-consultation paper on Free Data</b></a> (the Consultation Paper), which was issued in May 2016, asked for options where free data could be provided for accessing certain websites or apps without violating the <a href="http://www.trai.gov.in/WriteReadData/WhatsNew/Documents/Regulation_Data_Service.pdf" rel="nofollow"><b>Discriminatory Tariff Regulations</b></a> issued earlier in February. The objective of the paper is to maximise internet penetration, and make internet available even to the poorest.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The models suggested in the Consultation Paper are a reward of free data for certain internet uses, zero data charges for accessing certain content, and refunding data charges in a manner similar to refund of LPG subsidies. These models are very similar to plans like <a href="http://tech.firstpost.com/news-analysis/how-trai-regulations-will-impact-existing-services-such-as-free-basics-airtel-zero-298486.html"><b>Facebook’s Free Basics and Airtel Zero, which were banned</b></a> by the Discriminatory Tariff Regulations.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">While it is clear that Trai has no intention of withdrawing the Discriminatory Tariff Regulations, the Consultation Paper does appear to open up the doors to net neutrality violations again. Here’s a look at the comments and counter-comments that have come in response to this paper.</p>
<p><a href="http://tech.firstpost.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/free_basics_motorist2.jpg"><img alt="A motorist rides past a hoarding advertising Facebook's Free Basics. Image: Reuters" class="wp-image-329868 size-full" height="360" src="http://tech.firstpost.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/free_basics_motorist2.jpg" width="640" /></a></p>
<div class="prodtxtinf">A motorist rides past a hoarding advertising Facebook’s Free Basics. Image: Reuters</div>
<div class="prodtxtinf"></div>
<div class="prodtxtinf">
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Large TSPs and TSP associations want content-based free data schemes</b><br /> The <a href="http://trai.gov.in/Comments_FreeData/List_SP.pdf" rel="nofollow"><b>response of large TSPs</b></a> like Vodafone, Idea and so on are quite predictable. They, alongwith most of the TSP associations such as ACTO, COAI and AUSPI, are in support of the idea of free access to certain sites. They, in fact, point out the similarities between the proposed models and the similar models brought out by them, such as Airtel’s One Touch Internet and Reliance’s Facebook Tap. They have also asked for a withdrawal of the Discriminatory Tariff Regulations, on the grounds that they hamper the innovation and forbearance capabilities of the TSPs.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">They do, however, take issue with the fact that a TSP agnostic platform, or a platform which is completely independent of the TSPs, is to be given the power to decide how the lower prices or discounts are to be provided. They allege that there is nothing to prevent such a platform from acting as a gatekeeper in itself. They argue that TSPs are in a better position to perform this function, since they are subject to strict regulatory and licensing requirements from Trai.</p>
<a href="http://tech.firstpost.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/bengaluru_outsourcing.jpg"><img alt="Employees at an outsourcing centre in Bengaluru Image: Reuters" class="wp-image-329870 size-full" height="360" src="http://tech.firstpost.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/bengaluru_outsourcing.jpg" width="640" /></a>
<div class="prodtxtinf">Employees at an outsourcing centre in Bengaluru Image: Reuters</div>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Smaller TSPs and other companies fear net neutrality violations</b><br /> Smaller TSPs like Atria, Citicom and MTS are against content based free data proposal, mostly on the grounds that the models suggested violate net neutrality. They point out that allowing content based free data in any form will give an unfair advantage to large TSPs and content providers. Smaller companies and start-ups will be left in the lurch since they will not have the financial capabilities to effectively compete with such schemes. These entities also share the fear of the TSPs that there is nothing to stop a TSP agnostic platform from also acting as a gatekeeper.</p>
<a href="http://tech.firstpost.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/Mumbai_telecom.jpg"><img alt="Commuters with their smartphones in a Mumbai local. Image: Reuters" class="wp-image-321780" height="360" src="http://tech.firstpost.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/Mumbai_telecom.jpg" width="640" /></a>
<div class="prodtxtinf">Commuters with their smartphones in a Mumbai local. Image: Reuters</div>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Some alternative suggestions for free data schemes which do not violate net neutrality</b><br /> The approach suggested by Trai will, to a large extent, only benefit existing users of the internet, since a basic internet access of some sort is required before the users can enjoy the benefits of a rewards or a refund. Software Freedom Law Centre (SFLC), in its comments, points to research that found that only 12 percent of the users of zero rating services abroad (no data charges for certain websites), started using it because of the zero rating. Clearly, these schemes are not achieving the objective of increasing internet usage, and an alternative solution is required.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Many of the responses came up with alternative suggestions for free data schemes which can increase internet usage without violating net neutrality. Some of these suggestions are listed below:</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li>The <a href="http://trai.gov.in/Comments_FreeData/Companies_n_Organizations/Digital_Empowerment_Foundation.pdf" rel="nofollow"><b>Digital Empowerment Foundation</b></a> suggests the provision of free data quotas or packs, which would give a limited amount of data free of charge to all consumers. Any data usage above the basic pack will be charged at normal rates. It also suggests making such packs mandatory as a part of the TSP licensing terms or alternatively subsidising the cost of these packs through other benefits to the TSPs.</li>
<li><a href="http://trai.gov.in/Comments_FreeData/TSP/Sistema_Shyam_Teleservices_Ltd.pdf" rel="nofollow"><b>MTS</b></a> suggests that content providers be allowed free internet access for a limited time or quantity, such as 30 minutes per day, or 100MB per day, to certain groups, like low income groups.</li>
<li><a href="http://trai.gov.in/Comments_FreeData/Companies_n_Organizations/Mozilla.pdf" rel="nofollow"><b>Mozilla</b></a> and <a href="http://trai.gov.in/Comments_FreeData/Companies_n_Organizations/Software_Freedom_Law_Center.pdf" rel="nofollow"><b>SFLC</b></a> suggest the ‘equal rating’ system, where a small amount of data per day is made available free of charge to all internet users, over and above whatever other packs they may have purchased.</li>
<li>The <a href="http://trai.gov.in/Comments_FreeData/Companies_n_Organizations/Center_For_Internet_and_Society.pdf" rel="nofollow"><b>Centre for Internet and Society</b></a> suggests that the government allow TSPs to provide free internet to all, at a lower speed, and in return exempt the TSPs from the USO contributions in their license fees. This will ensure free data to all without differentiating based on content.</li>
<li>SFLC also suggests an increase in free public Wi-Fi hotspots, like the kind being made available in Indian railway stations, to increase internet accessibility without content-based discrimination.</li>
<li><a href="http://trai.gov.in/Comments_FreeData/TSP/MTNL.pdf" rel="nofollow"><b>MTNL</b></a> suggests that if content-based free data is to be allowed, the government should determine what constitutes the basic services to be allowed for free, such as railway booking services, and not leave this to the understanding of the TSPs.</li>
<li>MTS also suggests that content providers be allowed to give data-based rewards for certain activity, such as watching associated advertisements.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="http://trai.gov.in/Comments_FreeData/TSP/Atria_Convergence.pdf" rel="nofollow"><b>Atria</b></a> suggests that if free data is to be allowed, first establish a negative list of what cannot be done, such as no throttling of speeds.</li>
</ul>
<a href="http://tech.firstpost.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/anonymous_internet_censorship_protest.jpg"><img alt="Anonymous protests against Internet laws in Mumbai. Image: Reuters" class="wp-image-329869 size-full" height="360" src="http://tech.firstpost.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/anonymous_internet_censorship_protest.jpg" width="640" /></a>
<div class="prodtxtinf" style="text-align: justify; ">Anonymous protests against Internet laws in Mumbai. Image: Reuters</div>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>First establish ground rules of net neturality</b><br /> One common aspect of most of the comments to the Consultation Paper was the confusion regarding Trai’s stance on net neutrality. Many entities, including the large TSPs, pointed out the contradiction between this Consultation Paper and the Discriminatory Tariff Regulations.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">This paper gives the impression that the Discriminatory Tariff Regulations were issued not to prevent content based discrimination, but to prevent telecom service providers from becoming ‘gatekeepers’. In reality, that is not the main fear of the people, but the fear that net neutrality will be affected. The culprits might be anyone, whether it is the TSP, the content provider or the TSP agnostic platform suggested by Trai. It needs to modify its approach, and first lay down the fundamental rules on net neutrality. Any other regulations must first comply with these rules.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">While the motives of Trai are laudible, it is hoped that Trai will look into the several suggestions made that will achieve the dual targets of maximum internet penetration as well as securing net neutrality.</p>
</div>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/first-post-tech-2-august-15-2016-asheeta-regidi-responses-to-trai-consultation-paper-on-free-data-contain-some-good-suggestions'>https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/first-post-tech-2-august-15-2016-asheeta-regidi-responses-to-trai-consultation-paper-on-free-data-contain-some-good-suggestions</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaTRAINet NeutralityInternet Governance2016-08-17T03:05:57ZNews 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 EntryTRAI 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 EntryCIS Submission to TRAI Consultation on Regulatory Framework for Over-the-Top Services
https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/resources/net-neutrality/2015-03-27_cis_trai-submission_regulation-OTTs
<b></b>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/resources/net-neutrality/2015-03-27_cis_trai-submission_regulation-OTTs'>https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/resources/net-neutrality/2015-03-27_cis_trai-submission_regulation-OTTs</a>
</p>
No publisherpraneshFreedom of Speech and ExpressionTRAINet Neutrality2016-03-25T17:59:56ZFileIndia'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 ItemInternet Freedom
https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/asian-age-february-14-2016-sunil-abraham-vidushi-marda-internet-freedom
<b>The modern medium of the web is an open-sourced, democratic world in which equality is an ideal, which is why what is most important is Internet freedom. </b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The article by Sunil Abraham and Vidushi Marda was published by <a class="external-link" href="http://www.asianage.com/editorial/internet-freedom-555">Asian Age</a> on February 14, 2016.</p>
<hr style="text-align: justify; " />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">What would have gone wrong if India’s telecom regulator Trai had decided to support programmes like Facebook’s Free Basics and Airtel’s Zero Rating instead of issuing the regulation that prohibits discriminatory tariffs? Here are possible scenarios to look at in case the discriminatory tarrifs were allowed as they are in some countries.</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Possible impact on elections</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Facebook would have continued to amass its product — eyeballs. Indian eyeballs would be more valuable than others for three reasons 1. Facebook would have an additional layer of surveillance thanks to the Free Basics proxy server which stores the time, the site url and data transferred for all the other destinations featured in the walled garden 2. As part of Digital India, most government entities will set up Facebook pages and a majority of the interaction with citizens would happen on the social media rather than the websites of government entities and, consequently, Facebook would know what is and what is not working in governance 3. Given the financial disincentive to leave the walled garden, the surveillance would be total.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">What would this mean for democracies? Eight years ago, Facebook began to engineer the News Feed to show more posts of a user’s friends voting in order to influence voting behavior. It introduced the “I’m Voting” button into 61 million users’ feeds during the 2010 US presidential elections to increase voter turnout and found that this kind of social pressure caused people to vote. Facebook has also admitted to populating feeds with posts from friends with similar political views. During the 2012 Presidential elections, Facebook was able to increase voter turnout by altering 1.9 million news feeds.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Indian eyeballs may not be that lucrative in terms of advertising. But these users are extremely valuable to political parties and others interested in influencing elections. Facebook’s notifications to users when their friends signed on to the “Support Free Basics” campaign was configured so that you were informed more often than with other campaigns. In other words, Facebook is not just another player on their platform. Given that margins are often slim, would Facebook be tempted to try and install a government of its choice in India during the 2019 general elections?</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">In times of disasters</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Most people defending Free Basics and defending forbearance as the regulatory response in 2015/16 make the argument that “95 per cent of Internet users in developing countries spend 95 per cent of their time on Facebook”.<br /><br />This is not too far from the truth as LirneAsia demonstrated in 2012 with most people using Facebook in Indonesia not even knowing they were using the internet. In other words, they argue that regulators should ignore the fringe user and fringe usage and only focus on the mainstream. The cognitive bias they are appealing to is smaller numbers are less important.<br /><br />Since all the sublime analogies in the Net Neutrality debate have been taken, forgive us for using the scatological. That is the same as arguing that since we spend only 5% of our day in toilets, only 5% of our home’s real estate should be devoted to them.<br /><br />Everyone agrees that it is far easier to live in a house without a bedroom than a house without a toilet. Even extremely low probabilities or ‘Black Swan’ events can be terribly important! Imagine you are an Indian at the bottom of the pyramid. You cannot afford to pay for data on your phone and, as a result, you rarely and nervously stray out of the walled garden of Free Basics.<br /><br />During a natural disaster you are able to use the Facebook Safety Check feature to mark yourself safe but the volunteers who are organising both offline and online rescue efforts are using a wider variety of platforms, tools and technologies.<br /><br />Since you are unfamiliar with the rest of the Internet, you are ill equipped when you try to organise a rescue for you and your loved ones.</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Content and carriage converge</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Some people argue that TRAI should have stayed off the issue since the Competition Commission of India (CCI) is sufficient to tackle Net Neutrality harms. However it is unclear if predatory pricing by Reliance, which has only 9% market share, will cross the competition law threshold for market dominance? Interestingly, just before the Trai notification, the Ambani brothers signed a spectrum sharing pact and they have been sharing optic fibre since 2013.<br /><br />Will a content sharing pact follow these carriage pacts? As media diversity researcher, Alam Srinivas, notes “If their plans succeed, their media empires will span across genres such as print, broadcasting, radio and digital. They will own the distribution chains such as cable, direct-to-home (DTH), optic fibre (terrestrial and undersea), telecom towers and multiplexes.”<br /><br />What does this convergence vision of the Ambani brothers mean for media diversity in India? In the absence of net neutrality regulation could they use their dominance in broadcast media to reduce choice on the Internet? Could they use a non-neutral provisioning of the Internet to increase their dominance in broadcast media? When a single wire or the very same radio spectrum delivers radio, TV, games and Internet to your home — what under competition law will be considered a substitutable product? What would be the relevant market? At the Centre for Internet and Society (CI S), we argue that competition law principles with lower threshold should be applied to networked infrastructure through infrastructure specific non-discrimination regulations like the one that Trai just notified to protect digital media diversity.<br /><br />Was an absolute prohibition the best response for TRAI? With only two possible exemptions — i.e. closed communication network and emergencies - the regulation is very clear and brief. However, as our colleague Pranesh Prakash has said, TRAI has over regulated and used a sledgehammer where a scalpel would have sufficed. In CIS’ official submission, we had recommended a series of tests in order to determine whether a particular type of zero rating should be allowed or forbidden. That test may be legally sophisticated; but as TRAI argues it is clear and simple rules that result in regulatory equity. A possible alternative to a complicated multi-part legal test is the leaky walled garden proposal. Remember, it is only in the case of very dangerous technologies where the harms are large scale and irreversible and an absolute prohibition based on the precautionary principle is merited.<br /><br />However, as far as network neutrality harms go, it may be sufficient to insist that for every MB that is consumed within Free Basics, Reliance be mandated to provide a data top up of 3MB.<br /><br />This would have three advantages. One, it would be easy to articulate in a brief regulation and therefore reduce the possibility of litigation. Two, it is easy for the consumer who is harmed to monitor the mitigation measure and last, based on empirical data, the regulator could increase or decrease the proportion of the mitigation measure.<br /><br />This is an example of what Prof Christopher T. Marsden calls positive, forward-looking network neutrality regulation. Positive in the sense that instead of prohibitions and punitive measures, the emphasis is on obligations and forward-looking in the sense that no new technology and business model should be prohibited.</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">What is Net neutrality?</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">According to this principle, all service providers and governments should not discriminate between various data on the internet and consider all as one. They cannot give preference to one set of apps/ websites while restricting others.</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li><b>2006</b>: TRAI invites opinions regarding the regulation of net neutrality from various telecom industry bodies and stakeholders<b>Feb. 2012</b>: Sunil Bharti Mittal, CEO of Bharti Airtel, suggests services like YouTube should pay an interconnect charge to network operators, saying that if telecom operators are building highways for data then there should be a tax on the highway</li>
<li><b>July 2012</b>: Bharti Airtel’s Jagbir Singh suggests large Internet companies like Facebook and Google should share revenues with telecom companies.</li>
<li><b>August 2012</b>: Data from M-Lab said You Broadband, Airtel, BSNL were throttling traffic of P2P services like BitTorrent</li>
<li><b>Feb. 2013</b>: Killi Kiruparani, Minister for state for communications and technology says government will look into legality of VoIP services like Skype</li>
<li><b>June 2013</b>: Airtel starts offering select Google services to cellular broadband users for free, fixing a ceiling of 1GB on the data</li>
<li><b>Feb. 2014</b>: Airtel operations CEO Gopal Vittal says companies offering free messaging apps like Skype and WhatsApp should be regulated</li>
<li><b>August 2014</b>: TRAI rejects proposal from telecom companies to make messaging application firms share part of their revenue with the carriers/government</li>
<li><b>Nov. 2014</b>: Trai begins investigation on Airtel implementing preferential access with special packs for WhatsApp and Facebook at rates lower than standard data rates</li>
<li><b>Dec. 2014</b>: Airtel launches 2G, 3G data packs with VoIP data excluded in the pack, later launches VoIP pack.</li>
<li><b>Feb. 2015</b>: Facebook launches Internet.org with Reliance communications, aiming to provide free access to 38 websites through single app</li>
<li><b>March 2015</b>: Trai publishes consultation paper on regulatory framework for over the top services, explaining what net neutrality in India will mean and its impact, invited public feedback</li>
<li><b>April 2015</b>: Airtel launches Airtel Zero, a scheme where apps sign up with airtle to get their content displayed free across the network. Flipkart, which was in talks for the scheme, had to pull out after users started giving it poor rating after hearing about the news</li>
<li><b>April 2015</b>: Ravi Shankar Prasad, Communication and information technology minister announces formation of a committee to study net neutrality issues in the country</li>
<li><b>23 April 2015</b>: Many organisations under Free Software Movement of India protested in various parts of the country. In a counter measure, Cellular Operators Association of India launches campaign , saying its aim is to connect the unconnected citizens, demanding VoIP apps be treated as cellular operators</li>
<li><b>27 April 2015</b>: Trai releases names and email addresses of users who responded to the consultation paper in millions. Anonymous India group, take down Trai’s website in retaliation, which the government could not confirm</li>
<li><b>Sept. 2015</b>: Facebook rebrands Internet.org as Free Basics, launches in the country with massive ads across major newspapers in the country. Faces huge backlash from public</li>
<li><b>Feb. 2016:</b> Trai rules in favour of net neutrality, barring telecom operators from charging different rates for data services.</li>
</ul>
<hr style="text-align: justify; " />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The writers work at the Centre for Internet and Society, Bengaluru. CIS receives about $200,000 a year from WMF, the organisation behind Wikipedia, a site featured in Free Basics and zero-rated by many access providers across the world</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/asian-age-february-14-2016-sunil-abraham-vidushi-marda-internet-freedom'>https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/asian-age-february-14-2016-sunil-abraham-vidushi-marda-internet-freedom</a>
</p>
No publisherSunil Abraham and Vidushi MardaSocial MediaFree BasicsTRAINet NeutralityFreedom of Speech and ExpressionInternet Governance2016-02-15T02:51:10ZBlog EntryZuckerberg's Plan Spurned as India Backs Full Net Neutrality
https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/bloomberg-adi-narayan-bhuma-srivastava-february-8-2016-zuckerberg-plan-spurned-as-india-backs-full-net-neutrality
<b>Facebook Inc.’s plans for expansion in India have suffered a major setback.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The article by Adi Narayan and Bhuma Srivastava was published in <a class="external-link" href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-02-08/facebook-faces-setback-as-india-bans-differential-data-pricing">Bloomberg</a> on February 8, 2016. Pranesh Prakash was quoted.</p>
<hr style="text-align: justify; " />
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li>Telecom regulator bans differential Internet data plans</li>
<li>Facebook had lobbied India to approve its Free Basics plan</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">After the company spent months lobbying the country to accept its Free Basics service -- a way of delivering a limited Internet that included Facebook, plus some other tools, for no cost -- India’s telecom regulator ruled against any plans from cellular operators that charge different rates to different parts of the Web.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Telecom operators can’t offer discriminatory tariffs for data services based on content, and aren’t allowed to enter into agreements with Internet companies to subsidize access to some websites, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India <a href="http://www.trai.gov.in/WriteReadData/WhatsNew/Documents/Regulation_Data_Service.pdf" target="_blank" title="Link to website">said</a> in a statement Monday. Companies violating the rules will be fined, it said.</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 via phone. “Those who suggested regulation in place of complete ban have clearly lost.”</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">With this decision, India joins countries such as the U.S., Brazil and the Netherlands in passing laws that restrict telecom operators from discriminating Internet traffic based on content. It is a <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-01-14/india-facebook-s-fight-to-be-free" title="Facebook’s Fight to Be Free">big blow</a> to Facebook’s Internet sampler plan known as Free Basics, which is currently offered in about <a href="https://info.internet.org/en/story/where-weve-launched/" target="_blank" title="Link to Internet.org page">three dozen</a> countries including Kenya and Zambia, none of which come close to the scale or reach that could’ve been achieved in India.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">With 130 million Facebook users, 375 million people online, and an additional 800 million-plus who aren’t, India is the biggest growth market for the social network, which remains blocked in China.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Facebook said in a statement that it’s “disappointed with the outcome.”</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg said the decision won’t cause Facebook to give up on connecting people to the Internet in India, “because more than a billion people in India don’t have access to the Internet.” The company will continue to focus on its other initiatives, like extending networks using satellites, drones and lasers.</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Freebies Curtailed</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The rule will put an end to prepaid plans that offered free access to services such as Google searches, the WhatsApp messaging application and Facebook. These packages were popular with low-income users by giving them an incentive to get online, said Rajan Mathews, director general of the lobby group Cellular Operators Association of India.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">“These types of plans were being used by operators to meet the policy goals of connecting one billion people,” Matthews said. “With these gone, the government needs to tell us what alternatives are there.”</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The regulator’s decision comes after months of public <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-12-28/zuckerberg-makes-personal-appeal-in-india-for-free-net-service" title="Zuckerberg Makes Personal Appeal for Free Internet in India (1)">lobbying by Facebook</a> for India to approve Free Basics, which allows customers to access the social network and other services such as education, health care, and employment listings from their phones without a data plan.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Free Basics was criticized by activists who said it threatened net neutrality, the principle that all Internet websites should be equally accessible, and could change pricing in India for access to different websites.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The regulator, which had sought stakeholders’ views, said it was seeking to ensure data tariffs remain content agnostic. Operators will have six months to wind down existing differential pricing services.</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Google Unaffected</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">“Anything on the Internet can’t be priced based on content, applications, source and destination,” R.S. Sharma, the regulator’s chairman, told reporters in New Delhi. Some Internet companies’ plans to offer free WiFi at public venues, like Google Inc.’s <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-12-16/data-too-dear-set-youtube-to-download-in-india-while-you-sleep" title="Data Too Dear? Set YouTube to Download in India While You Sleep">project</a> with Indian Railways, are not affected by this ruling, he said.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">For Free Basics, one or two carriers in a given country offer the package for free at slow speeds, betting that it will help attract new customers who’ll later upgrade to pricier data plans. In India, Facebook had tied up with Reliance Communications Ltd., though the service was suspended in December as the government solicited comments from proponents and opponents.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Since the government’s telecommunications regulator announced the suspension, Facebook bought daily full-page <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-01-14/india-facebook-s-fight-to-be-free" title="Facebook’s Fight to Be Free">ads</a> in major newspapers and plastered billboards with pictures of happy farmers and schoolchildren it says would benefit from Free Basics. Zuckerberg has frequently made the case himself via phone or newspaper op-eds, asking that Indians petition the government to approve his service.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Entrepreneurs, business people and activists took to Twitter to share their views after the decision came out on Monday.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">“Great to see TRAI backing <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/NetNeutrality?src=hash" target="_blank" title="Click to view webpage.">#</a><a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/NetNeutrality?src=hash" target="_blank" title="Click to view webpage.">NetNeutrality</a>,” Kunal Bahl, founder of Snapdeal.com, one of India’s biggest e-commerce sites, said. “Let’s keep the Internet free and independent.”</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
</ul>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/bloomberg-adi-narayan-bhuma-srivastava-february-8-2016-zuckerberg-plan-spurned-as-india-backs-full-net-neutrality'>https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/bloomberg-adi-narayan-bhuma-srivastava-february-8-2016-zuckerberg-plan-spurned-as-india-backs-full-net-neutrality</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaSocial MediaFree BasicsTRAINet NeutralityFacebookInternet Governance2016-02-15T02:18:54ZNews ItemTrai upholds Net Neutrality in setback to Facebook’s Free Basics
https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/livemint-february-9-2016-shauvik-ghosh-moulishree-srivastava-trai-upholds-net-neutrality-in-setback-to-facebooks-free-basics
<b>Trai says Internet service providers will not be allowed to discriminate on pricing of data access for different web services. </b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The article by Moulishree Srivastava and Shauvik Ghosh was <a class="external-link" href="http://www.livemint.com/Politics/duz0hEe6YotL5t8oLKjiOM/Trai-bars-companies-from-charging-or-offering-data-traffic-o.html">published in Livemint </a>on February 9, 2016. Sunil Abraham was quoted.</p>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">India’s telecom regulator has barred Internet service providers from offering customers preferential tariffs to access certain content over concerns that it will violate Net neutrality norms, dealing a blow to Facebook Inc.’s free data service plan.<br /><br />Internet service providers, including telecom operators, are prohibited from offering discriminatory tariffs for data services based on content, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) said on Monday. Service providers that violate these rules will be fined Rs.50,000 per day to a maximum of Rs.50 lakh. Trai said it may review the rules after two years.<br /><br />The decision ends a long battle between Facebook and the country’s telecom operators, including Bharti Airtel Ltd, on one side and Net neutrality activists on the other. Facebook had launched an intense lobbying effort that included full-page advertisements in newspapers and an Internet campaign to assure people that its Free Basics plan, which allows access to its social network and some other websites without a data plan, would benefit millions of poor Indians.<br /><br />“BJP wholeheartedly welcomes the Trai decision on differential pricing. The decision is a clear expression of popular will,” said telecom minister Ravi Shankar Prasad on Monday. “The government made sure proper processes were followed at all levels which eventually led to the victory of an open and equal Internet... It is gladdening to see that the NDA government ensured unparalleled transparency in the entire issue of net neutrality,” he added.<br /><br />Net neutrality requires Internet service providers not to discriminate on online data by user, content, site, platform, application, mode of communication or price.<br /><br />“The net neutrality activists... have got exactly what they wanted—the complete prohibition of the differential pricing,” said Sunil Abraham, executive director of the Bengaluru-based research organization Centre for Internet and Society. “Before Facebook started with its aggressive and outrageous campaign to promote Free Basics, the Net neutrality debate was a peaceful discussion. The way it has behaved must have led the regulator to lose trust that big companies can self-regulate.”<br /><br />It, however, remains to be seen whether telcos challenge the regulation in court, he added.<br /><br />“This has been a litigious issue and a lot of money is at stake so quite likely, I think, they will go to court,” said Apar Gupta, a lawyer and part of Save The Internet campaign.<br /><br />The basic rationale behind the regulation is that the network that carries the data should be agnostic to data packets, R.S. Sharma, chairman of Trai, told reporters.<br /><br />“Anything on the Internet cannot be priced discriminately based on source, destination, content and applications,” he said.<br /><br />A spokesperson for Facebook said the company will carefully study what the regulator has said and comment accordingly.<br /><br />Bharti Airtel and Reliance Communications Ltd (Facebook partnered with R-Com in India) declined to comment.<br /><br />Differential pricing based on the network speed, Sharma said, is a larger issue and so is Net neutrality.<br /><br />“We have used the term discriminatory pricing in place of differential pricing, because differential pricing in the consultation paper had a particular context. Differential word was quite contextual in the regulation, but it was misunderstood in a very larger context. Therefore, to differentiate, we are calling it discriminatory,” he said.<br /><br />However, Sharma said that the Net neutrality debate is not over.<br /><br />“Net neutrality is a larger question, and we have not gone into that question, though, I must admit, differential pricing is looking at Net neutrality from a tariff perspective. Net neutrality has a number of other components which is fast lane, throttling and differentially treating the packet in terms of speed etc. So this is not a part of this regulation,” Sharma said.<br /><br />Amresh Nandan, research director at Gartner in India, said the Trai order favouring Net neutrality is in line with rules in the US. “The European Union has also ruled in favour of treating all Internet traffic equally,” Nandan said.<br /><br />Nandan said the proponents of Net neutrality all over the world have been highlighting the importance of democratic values of the Internet and even a marginal attempt to curb it can possibly trigger all kinds of differentiation.<br /><br />All the major telcos in India have, however, been lobbying the regulator to allow differential-pricing plans for data services. The telcos said such tariffs will increase Internet penetration in the country, benefiting consumers in the long run. They further argued that the existing legal framework is sufficient for regulating and monitoring differential pricing measures provided by the service providers and that Trai can deal with any issue regarding anti-competitive practices on a case-by-case basis as and when they arise.<br /><br />Activists say such a practice will undermine competition and create monopolies. Differential pricing, they said, will allow big companies to buy favoured treatment from carriers.<br /><br />Telecom operators said they were disappointed with the ruling. “Differential pricing could be useful in connecting the unconnected in India. This is an upfront disbarment,” said Rajan Mathews, director general of the Cellular Operators Association of India, the lobby group that represent some of the major telcos. “We believe that it was an appropriate tool to allow consumers who have never been on the Internet, to enjoy getting accustomed to it without getting sticker shock.”<br /><br />Hemant Joshi, a partner at Deloitte Haskins and Sells Llp, said differential pricing was a well-accepted principle across industries.<br /><br />“The concept inherently recognizes the economic principle of paying differently for different levels of service and experience. In telecom, there are virtual highways that need to follow the same principle. More awareness and education is needed around the economics of differential pricing and its long-term implications on the Industry and the consumer,” he added.<br /><br />Trai, which put up the consultation paper on differential pricing on 9 December, asked four specific questions, broadly on whether telecom operators should be allowed to offer different services at different price points and models that can be implemented to achieve this.<br /><br />Trai extended the deadline for comments and counter-comments on its consultation paper to 7 January and 14 January from 31 December and 7 January, respectively. For the consultation process, Trai said that majority of the individual comments received did not address the specific questions that were raised in the consultation paper.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><i>P.R. Sanjai and Ashish K. Mishra in Mumbai contributed to this story. </i></p>
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For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/livemint-february-9-2016-shauvik-ghosh-moulishree-srivastava-trai-upholds-net-neutrality-in-setback-to-facebooks-free-basics'>https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/livemint-february-9-2016-shauvik-ghosh-moulishree-srivastava-trai-upholds-net-neutrality-in-setback-to-facebooks-free-basics</a>
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No publisherpraskrishnaFree BasicsTRAINet NeutralityInternet Governance2016-02-15T02:01:37ZNews ItemThere is No Such Thing as Free Basics
https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/bangalore-mirror-subhashish-panigrahi-february-9-2016-there-is-no-such-thing-as-free-basics
<b>India would not see the rain of Free Basics advertisements on billboards with images of farmers and common people explaining how much they could benefit from this Firefox project. Because the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has taken a historical step by banning the differential pricing without discriminating services.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The article was published in <a class="external-link" href="http://www.bangaloremirror.com/news/india/There-is-No-such-thing-as-Free-basics/articleshow/50908289.cms">Bangalore Mirror</a> on February 9, 2016.</p>
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<p style="text-align: justify; ">In their notes, TRAI has explained, "In India, given that a majority of the population are yet to be connected to the Internet, allowing service providers to define the nature of access would be equivalent of letting TSPs shape the users' Internet experience." Not just that, violation of this ban would cost Rs 50,000 every day.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Facebook's earlier plan was to launch Free Basics in India by making a few websites—that are mostly partners with Facebook—available for free. The company not just advertised heavily on billboards and commercials across the nation, it also embedded a campaign inside Facebook asking users to vote in support of Free Basics.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">TRAI criticised Facebook's attempt for such a manipulative public provocation. However, Facebook was heavily criticised by many policy and Internet advocates, including non-profits groups like Free Software Movement of India and Savetheinternet.in campaign.<br /><br />The latter two collectives were strongly discouraging Free Basics by bringing public opinion wherein Savetheinternet.org was used to send over 10 lakh emails to TRAI to disallow Free Basics.<br /><br />Furthermore 500 start ups including major ones like Cleartrip, Zomato, Practo, Paytm and Cleartax also wrote to prime minister Narendra Modi requesting continued support for Net Neutrality — a concept that advocates equal treating of websites — on the Republic Day.<br /><br />Stand-up comedy groups like AIB and East India Comedy had created humorous but informative videos explaining the regulatory debate and supporting net neutrality which went viral.<br /><br />Technology critic and Quartz writer Alice Truong reacted saying: "Zuckerberg almost portrays net neutrality as a first-world problem that doesn't apply to India because having some service is better than no service."<br /><br />In the light of differential pricing, news portal Medianama's founder Nikhil Pawa, in his opinion piece in Times of India, emphasised the way Aircel in India, Grameenphone in Bangladesh and Orange in Africa were providing free access to Internet with a sole motif of access to Internet, and criticised the walled Internet of Facebook that confines users inside Facebook only.<br /><br />Had the differential pricing been allowed, it would have affected start ups and content-based smaller companies adversely, as they could never have managed to pay the high price to a partner service provider to make their service available for free.<br /><br />On the other hand, tech-giants like Facebook could have easily managed to capture the entire market. Since the inception of the Facebook-run non-profit Internet.org has run into a lot of controversies because of the hidden motive behind the claimed support for social cause.<br /><br />The decision by the government has been welcomed largely in the country and outside.<br /><br />In support of the move, Web We Want programme manager at the World Wide Web Foundation, Renata Avila, has shared saying,<br /><br />"As the country with the second largest number of Internet users worldwide, this decision will resonate around the world.<br /><br />"It follows a precedent set by Chile, the United States, and others which have adopted similar net neutrality safeguards. The message is clear: We can't create a two-tier Internet — one for the haves, and one for the have-nots. We must connect everyone to the full potential of the open Web."</p>
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For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/bangalore-mirror-subhashish-panigrahi-february-9-2016-there-is-no-such-thing-as-free-basics'>https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/bangalore-mirror-subhashish-panigrahi-february-9-2016-there-is-no-such-thing-as-free-basics</a>
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No publishersubhaFree BasicsTRAIFacebookInternet Governance2016-02-14T11:37:50ZBlog 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>
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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>
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No publisherpraskrishnaSocial MediaTelecomFree BasicsTRAINet NeutralityFreedom of Speech and ExpressionInternet Governance2016-02-04T13:53:05ZNews Item