Net Neutrality in India

[panju1]

While the telecom companies attack on net neutrality seems to have failed in the US, they still seem to be at it in other markets. In India, there has still lots of room for ambiguity.

Facebook has tied up with Reliance, one of the telecom service providers, to provide free access to Facebook, while other applications like Twitter will be charged. Airtel is planning to come up with its own version called "Airtel Zero". Vodafone is watching from the sidelines, ready to enter the market if required.

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India has released a whitepaper on Net Neutrality and invited comments on the same. Unfortunately, it seems to have been authored by somebody from the telecom sector. 

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/tech/tech-news/Time-to-fight-for-net-neutrality-in-India/articleshow/46757178.cms
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/tech/social/Fight-for-net-neutrality-unites-internet/articleshow/46896316.cms

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[bryant.coleman]

I've been to India multiple times, and I have never liked the broadband facilities there. A decent connection (512 Kbps, i.e 64 KBps) costs as much as $25 and the service is really bad. In my country, I pay half of that amount for a 50Mbps connection!!!!

[redsn0w]

I've been to India multiple times, and I have never liked the broadband facilities there. A decent connection (512 Kbps, i.e 64 KBps) costs as much as $25 and the service is really bad. In my country, I pay half of that amount for a 50Mbps connection!!!!

Can I ask you where do you live? Here in Italy at the moment I'm paying 45 € (two months) for a 20/5 Mbps and I don't think it is too much.

However I have some friends that live in India and they always tell me " my connection is very bad, and we pay too much". As in almost all the Asian countries.

[NUFCrichard]

I've been to India multiple times, and I have never liked the broadband facilities there. A decent connection (512 Kbps, i.e 64 KBps) costs as much as $25 and the service is really bad. In my country, I pay half of that amount for a 50Mbps connection!!!!

Can I ask you where do you live? Here in Italy at the moment I'm paying 45 € (two months) for a 20/5 Mbps and I don't think it is too much.

However I have some friends that live in India and they always tell me " my connection is very bad, and we pay too much". As in almost all the Asian countries.

I pay 20€ a month for 32/2 in Germany, I wouldn't expect India to have a great broadband service, but I didn't expect that it would be really expensive too!

I would be interested to know if in the bigger cities this if different, I mean 4g is much faster than 512kb/64kb, so it shouldn't be hard to implement in big cities.

[Sithara007]

In my opinion, the Metro cities in India like Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, etc. has good net connectivity compared to other non-metro cities. The band width which is being used by major telecom are better in Metros. I know all this because I have lived in many metro cities in India.

[Mike Christ]

Net neutrality is only a problem because existing telecom companies have incredible government grants and restrictions making it extremely difficult for new businesses to sprout, as it's too expensive.  Because you have a limited amount of companies providing any given service, those companies can easily collude and lobby and do whatever the hell they want with their businesses, such as slowing traffic and charging for certain sites.  What are you gonna do, change services?  You got like two, maybe three max options in any given area, you're pretty much screwed if they all agree on the same practices.

The solution?  Take away these grants and restrictions, stop allowing your government to regulate your businesses, and regulate them yourselves with your money.  In this case, if any single business starts acting naughty, there's plenty of alternatives to go to; the more alternatives, the easier it is for any one company to undercut another company and take their business as their own.  That's good: this is what competition does, you either be the best at what you do or you go under for being crap.  No need for net neutrality, it'd never be a problem.

And what do people advocate?  More government grants and restrictions: classify the fuckers as a public utility and further solidify their ranks as oligopolies, making it that much harder for any new business to come up and compete.  The fuck is wrong with people?  Reminds me of this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vMG-LWyNcAs  Caterpillar is "the people", wasp is "the state and all its kin including corporations", and the maggots, well that's the wasp's ideas slowly killing the caterpillar while it cares and nurtures these ideas to its own death.  Some seriously fucked up zombie mind control voodoo bullshit going on here.  There's also folklore in Africa surrounding the idea of zombies, except they're not undead, they're just slaves to the "witch" that turns them into mindless drones.  Expending one's time, energy and health for the benefit of a predator...I have to say, it's among the most vile schemes in this world.

[ashour]

I've been to India multiple times, and I have never liked the broadband facilities there. A decent connection (512 Kbps, i.e 64 KBps) costs as much as $25 and the service is really bad. In my country, I pay half of that amount for a 50Mbps connection!!!!

It really depends on the infrastructure that is invested by the telecommunication providers, also to note that India is a HUGE country and bigger countries always tend to have slow/bad internet connections. Probably in 10 years the cable/internet infrastructure will be better and more stable. It's just a matter of funding and time.

[redsn0w]

I've been to India multiple times, and I have never liked the broadband facilities there. A decent connection (512 Kbps, i.e 64 KBps) costs as much as $25 and the service is really bad. In my country, I pay half of that amount for a 50Mbps connection!!!!

Can I ask you where do you live? Here in Italy at the moment I'm paying 45 € (two months) for a 20/5 Mbps and I don't think it is too much.

However I have some friends that live in India and they always tell me " my connection is very bad, and we pay too much". As in almost all the Asian countries.

I pay 20€ a month for 32/2 in Germany, I wouldn't expect India to have a great broadband service, but I didn't expect that it would be really expensive too!

I would be interested to know if in the bigger cities this if different, I mean 4g is much faster than 512kb/64kb, so it shouldn't be hard to implement in big cities.

Yes 20 € a month for a 32/2 Mb is very good, Germany is a very good country... maybe one day I will visit it.

Maybe as Sithara 007 said, in the metro city there isn't that problem. The problem is the countryside city, etc.

I've been to India multiple times, and I have never liked the broadband facilities there. A decent connection (512 Kbps, i.e 64 KBps) costs as much as $25 and the service is really bad. In my country, I pay half of that amount for a 50Mbps connection!!!!

It really depends on the infrastructure that is invested by the telecommunication providers, also to note that India is a HUGE country and bigger countries always tend to have slow/bad internet connections. Probably in 10 years the cable/internet infrastructure will be better and more stable. It's just a matter of funding and time.

When I am see the Google fiber, I really can't imaginate those people surf internet at 1 Gbps and here I have 20 Mbps  .

[MegaFall]

Because you have a limited amount of companies providing any given service, those companies can easily collude and lobby and do whatever the hell they want with their businesses, such as slowing traffic and charging for certain sites.

You have limited choices because local municipalities form contractual monopolies with companies to institute a one and only one option system for utilities. You have governments creating a problem and then trying to solve their own problem by enforcing price ceilings on the products; which then makes it highly unprofitable to be in the business that the company is in. How does that make an sense in the slightest? If I were comcast or Verizon or whatever I would say screw it, we're no longer over internet access.

[panju1]

What do you do when public opinion is in favour of net neutrality and you as a telecom operator still want to make money? You change the definition of net neutrality!

"In its pristine form, net neutrality does not exist anywhere in the world. What we need to do is find the right definition that creates value for India, for customers and for app developers" - Srini Gopalan, Airtel

https://in.newshub.org/airtel-promises-no-slow-lanes-internet-wants-pragmatic-approach-net-neutrality-15306095.html

[Sithara007]

What do you do when public opinion is in favour of net neutrality and you as a telecom operator still want to make money? You change the definition of net neutrality!

"In its pristine form, net neutrality does not exist anywhere in the world. What we need to do is find the right definition that creates value for India, for customers and for app developers" - Srini Gopalan, Airtel

https://in.newshub.org/airtel-promises-no-slow-lanes-internet-wants-pragmatic-approach-net-neutrality-15306095.html

Yes you are right but it's not only the telecom operator who are responsible for that. Government is also equally responsible for that. Don't you think?

[bryant.coleman]

Can I ask you where do you live?

South-east Asia.

Maybe as Sithara 007 said, in the metro city there isn't that problem. The problem is the countryside city, etc.

It is a problem everywhere. Even in the metro cities, they are charging $25 per month for a 512 Kbps connection. And the quality is very bad. India is the place where you get bad quality stuff for ultra-expensive prices.

[panju1]

The public backlash seems to have had some impact. One of Airtel's biggest clients, Flipkart has pulled out. 

http://www.ndtv.com/india-news/flipkart-pulls-out-of-airtel-deal-amid-backlash-over-net-neutrality-754829

[bryant.coleman]

The public backlash seems to have had some impact. One of Airtel's biggest clients, Flipkart has pulled out. 

Hah... I was referring to Airtel in this post:

I've been to India multiple times, and I have never liked the broadband facilities there. A decent connection (512 Kbps, i.e 64 KBps) costs as much as $25 and the service is really bad. In my country, I pay half of that amount for a 50Mbps connection!!!!

Airtel is the worst broadband provider in the world. Extremely expensive with awful service. I still wonder how ordinary Indians tolerate this cartel.

[redsn0w]

Can I ask you where do you live?

South-east Asia.

Maybe as Sithara 007 said, in the metro city there isn't that problem. The problem is the countryside city, etc.

It is a problem everywhere. Even in the metro cities, they are charging $25 per month for a 512 Kbps connection. And the quality is very bad. India is the place where you get bad quality stuff for ultra-expensive prices.

25 bucks for 512 Kbps  , I hope you are kidding me . This is really insane, why that high price for almost nothing?

[bryant.coleman]

25 bucks for 512 Kbps  , I hope you are kidding me . This is really insane, why that high price for almost nothing?

Some 80% of India's population lives on government handouts. So the government taxes anything taxable at astronomic rates. For broadband companies, there is a spectrum fee for the necessary license. It can run in to billions of USD. Then there are taxes such as Corporate tax, Labor tax.etc, which amount to some 60-65% of the profits. Then the customer ends up paying taxes like VAT, Service Tax, Cess.etc. So in the end the government is responsible for 80% of the bill amount.

[abyrnes81]

I've been to India multiple times, and I have never liked the broadband facilities there. A decent connection (512 Kbps, i.e 64 KBps) costs as much as $25 and the service is really bad. In my country, I pay half of that amount for a 50Mbps connection!!!!

512 Kbps is not a decent connection. You'd be struggling to load Bitcointalk on that and can forget about Youtube, uploading photos and so on.
It's bad if you have such connection on your smartphone, if we're talking PC it's a tragedy.

The bad and expensive connection doesn't stop them from using the web. They're doing better than Africans and Arab countries

From that 'stats' it seems that in the Africa there a lot of people don't (or can't) use/surf internet, but the interesting thing is the Brazile (50-100 mln internet users).

25 bucks for 512 Kbps  , I hope you are kidding me . This is really insane, why that high price for almost nothing?

Some 80% of India's population lives on government handouts. So the government taxes anything taxable at astronomic rates. For broadband companies, there is a spectrum fee for the necessary license. It can run in to billions of USD. Then there are taxes such as Corporate tax, Labor tax.etc, which amount to some 60-65% of the profits. Then the customer ends up paying taxes like VAT, Service Tax, Cess.etc. So in the end the government is responsible for 80% of the bill amount.

Those taxes are really useless  , why should pay the taxes if the service sucks?

[Sithara007]

Can I ask you where do you live?

South-east Asia.

Maybe as Sithara 007 said, in the metro city there isn't that problem. The problem is the countryside city, etc.

It is a problem everywhere. Even in the metro cities, they are charging $25 per month for a 512 Kbps connection. And the quality is very bad. India is the place where you get bad quality stuff for ultra-expensive prices.

In that sense you are absolutely right my friend. In India, everything is costly as compare to West or Europe but the services or quality are really shitty. It is only because there is strict Consumer protection laws as compare to India. Of topic but I bought a Tommy Polo Tee in around equivalent to 80-90USD and the same Tee with much better quality you can get in the US in fraction of that amount.

[gkv9]

I've been to India multiple times, and I have never liked the broadband facilities there. A decent connection (512 Kbps, i.e 64 KBps) costs as much as $25 and the service is really bad. In my country, I pay half of that amount for a 50Mbps connection!!!!

Can I ask you where do you live? Here in Italy at the moment I'm paying 45 € (two months) for a 20/5 Mbps and I don't think it is too much.

However I have some friends that live in India and they always tell me " my connection is very bad, and we pay too much". As in almost all the Asian countries.

We Indians actually need some really great services to be provided cheaper compared to what is being provided in foreign countries as the speed that they get at the price is 1/10th or 1/25th the price we pay here, and it's almost impossible to get it due to what these companies have started doing now...

[panju1]

Some 80% of India's population lives on government handouts. So the government taxes anything taxable at astronomic rates. For broadband companies, there is a spectrum fee for the necessary license.

Spectrum is bought through an auction. So it is actually the free market which pushes up the spectrum costs.
However, nothing can justify a stunt like the one Airtel is trying to pull now.