When cellular telephony started in India, Bharti and Reliance took two divergent approaches towards launching cellular services — Airtel decided to focus on providing the services, leaving third party players to provide the hardware, while Reliance decided went with CDMA, a technology in which everything was more tightly controlled. Despite the obvious technological shortcomings of […]
Telecom minister Manoj Sinha today said the government is committed to the “the fundamental principles and concept of net neutrality” and is studying the recommendations of the telecom regulator in this regard. The government is keen to ensure “non-discriminatory access to internet,” Sinha added. The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India had, a month ago, sent […]
India’s telecom regulator TRAI has issued its recommendations on Net Neutrality in India. The recommendations are largely along expected lines, and prevent telecom companies from slowing down the Internet to ease the traffic of their video apps, messengers and other ‘over-the-top’ services. The move comes even as an Indian-origin bureaucrat in the US is facing […]
The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India has started registrations for an open house discussion on its upcoming recommendations on net neutrality. The open house discussion will be held on Wednesday, August 30 at 9:30 AM in New Delhi. The venue has not been finalized yet, and is likely to be fixed after the regulator gets […]
Netflix, the world’s biggest provider of video-on-demand services, rebuffed attempts by telecom companies to control viewership of online video and said consumers must be allowed to consume any legal content on the Internet without ‘gate keeping’ or interference by telecom providers. It said its position was that “gate-keepers should not be in a position to […]
Telecom companies are trying to divide Internet traffic into different ‘castes’ and treat each of them differently and want to extract money from people who create apps, websites and other content, said Internet Freedom Foundation. The IFF was responding to suggestions given to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India by telcos that net neutrality should […]
If you thought the fight over net neutrality was over with the sending of 1 mln emails to the TRAI two years ago, think again. The telecom service providers, who lost out that in the first round, are back. This time, however, their demands are more subtle, and focused on getting specific services exempted from […]
India’s telecom regulator has suggested that every rural citizen should be given 100 MB or so per month on a free basis to help the spread of digital revolution in the country. It has also suggested allowing ‘third party aggregators’ like Facebook to offer free data, but only if they can keep telecom companies totally […]
Reliance Jio has increased the number of TV channels on its JioTV app to 368, making it a potential competitor to DTH and cable TV platforms. JioTV, which started out as JioPlay, had only around 200 channels in the beginning. However, the platform has added about 50 channels every month over the last three months, […]
Untill now, to make calls using apps, you had to subscribe to a data pack. However, Reliance Communications has now introduced a new plan in which it will offer data for such app-to-app calls, but instead of billing you for the amount of data, it will bill you for the length of the calls. Typically, […]
As expected, telecom companies have rightly sought to exploit a loophole left open by the regulator and the government when they issued the famous ‘net neutrality’ guidelines earlier in the year. The TRAI and the government had, in February, banned any discriminatory charging for digital content flowing over their networks, and said that all bits should […]
The TRAI’s new net neutrality rules are likely to see the launch of a number of zero-rated networks by players whose dreams of zero-rated websites have been dashed by the regulator. Under the new regulations, telecom companies have been banned from offering any website for free, but have been allowed to offer entire networks for […]
As you read this, India is celebrating the victory of ‘net neutrality’ over evil plans by Facebook and telecom companies to convert the Internet into a walled garden where they allow only those websites who pay monies to them. And you can’t be blamed for it either. But guess what, the telcos are not crying […]
The Internet and Mobile Association of India welcomed the Indian telecom regulator’s move to ban differential pricing of data based on the type and source of content. “This ruling vindicates the associations stand on the issue. The internet Start-up eco-system and the internet user community are delighted,” it said. Taking a long-term view, the Telecom […]
Following Star TV and Sony, Zee TV has also come out strongly against any move to allow telecom operators to charge websites for content viewed by their consumers over the Internet. At present, any person is free to start a website, app or any other content service on the Internet, and telecom providers like Bharti […]
After Star TV, Sony Pictures Networks India — which runs several popular TV channels — has raised a red flag against any move to splinter the Internet into free and paid. “Differential pricing leads to restriction of access to information. It enables TSPs to play the role of gate-keepers to the internet where they are […]
Facebook, the world’s largest social media company, said it will explore the option of putting advertising in its ‘free Internet’ platform – Free Basics. Participating in a discussion on Reddit, Facebook’s Vice President in charge of Internet.org, Chris Daniels said it’s a possibility the company will look at in the future. Facebook had come under […]
Facebook’s Vice President in charge of Internet.org, Chris Daniels will answer ‘any questions’ on the discussion website Reddit at 6 pm today. The move comes in the wake of an uproar in social media in India over what many perceive as Facebook’s attempt to take over the Internet, especially in lower-income countries like India. Daniels […]
Facebook is claiming in an advertisement that 3.2 mln of its users have sent letters to the TRAI supporting its ‘free basics’ program in the context of the ongoing debate about net neutrality. However, it did not reveal how many of its users refused to send the email, or at least how many were shown […]
Facebook, the world’s biggest social network, is prompting its users to send a submission to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India to save its ‘Free Basics’ program, urging them to fight the “small, vocal group” of net neutrality activists. “A small, vocal group of critics are lobbying to have Free Basics banned on the basis […]
