Eduction
Net Neutrality And Free Basics
Dt: 6/1/16
Net Neutrality And Free Basics
Dr T.H.Chowdary*
Mark Zuckerberg of the Face Book has offered free Internet through internet.org earlier which later has been named as Free Basics. More than two million internet users endorsed and welcomed the Free Basics. But a number of persons denounce this Free Basics in wild terms like “East India Company again, “imperial loot” and seductive poverty alleviation and job creation claims which are all false altruism. Their war cry is Net Neutrality. We are reminded of the garibi hatao slogan which swept India Gandhi to unchallenged power for some time. The Banks and coal mines nationalisation and such measures of hers were hailed as garibi hatao schemes. Forty six years are over since the garibhi hatao of Indira Gandhi and several measures with that aim the acolytes of the Dynasty had from time to time launched. The poverty has not gone away. Net neutrality is like garibi hatao . It is touted as enabler of thousands of start up companies, creative of myriad applications, providing jobs for lakhs of people. Stripped of the invective verbiage from the champions of net neutrality and discounting the promise of Facebook to add a billion Indians to the Internet to get rid of illiteracy and poverty etc., Free basics is a service which is neither harmful nor beneficial in the degrees that the champions and the opponents claim.’
2. Free Basics provides free access to a few hundred web sites. The critics say that many other websites not patronised by Free Basics will be priced out because the cost of Free Basics will have to be realised from users of other non Free Basics websites. Is not this the principle of all poverty alleviation schemes? The rich are taxed and more taxed and the poor are given more and more subsidies and free things and services. But not all are given free or subsidised. For eg. under the Public Distribution Scheme (PDS) some quantities of only a few commodities like kerosene and sugar and wheat/rice and edible oil are given at
rock bottom prices for the poor. The rest like vegetables, clothing and travel and other goods and services are paid by the poor even at ever rising prices. The free access to certain websites and priced access to the rest is just like the PDS giving certain things at rock bottom price and the rest at a very high prices. PDS is not advocated to be withdrawn. On the other had, there is clamour for more of it .
3. It is not compulsory for any Internet user to subscribe to Free Basics. There are several Internet service providers. Some users have multiple subscriptions. Many cell phone users have two or more SIM cards. Similarly, internet users can have the Free Basics as well as the priced other internet service. When there is choice, why should the new-comer be prevented?
4. Differential pricing is an accepted practice both by private as well as government providers of services. For example, there is a differential pricing between business class and economy class air travel. The former is paying more for a little more comfort and the exclusion of the not so rich from his company. The Indian Railways have different prices for the same rail travel over the same distance. The price difference is due to time taken by different trains between the two places of travel; and the comfort provided during the journey. When government can have differential pricing, why cannot the internet and cell phone companies have differential pricing for different speeds that they provide (1 G, 2G, 3G, 4G & 5G refer to the ever increasing speed of data delivery over the internet).
5. Socialism and secularism are political slogans to attract voters and yet there is no real socialism or secularism, despite several decades of espousing them. Net neutrality is as grand and hollow a slogan and war cry as socialism and secularism and poverty elimination and inclusive growth. It would be prudent to be practical and allow the Free Basics at least for an year or two in the first instance to see how it affects users, especially the low income population whom Zuckerberg promises to serve just as all “socialists” and “poverty eliminators” are joyously promising all the while. Surely, Free Basics giving access to many websites freely, can be helpful to the not so well-to-do millions. (731 words)
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