Vasundhra: CYBERSPACE

Monday, April 13, 2015

FIGHT FOR FREEDOM OF INTERNET CYBER WAR IS ON

SOURCE:
http://www.msn.com/en-in/news/national/why-we-need-net-neutrality/ar-AAaESrX?li=AAaVsg6

                         FIGHT FOR FREEDOM
                                     OF
              INTERNET CYBER WAR IS ON

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) Recently Sought Public Comments on                             Net Neutrality.

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© Provided by Indian Express The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) recently sought public comments on net neutrality.

The debate on net neutrality picked up steam in 2010, when the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) lost its case against Comcast in the US Supreme Court.

Increasingly it is becoming clear that, for now, net neutrality advocates abroad have the upper hand.

But what about India?

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) recently sought public comments on net neutrality. This was spurred by Airtel’s move to charge for VoIP calls. This means the company offers customers internet access as a product and allocates a certain amount of data for the money paid. What you choose to do with that data should be your concern.

But Airtel now says, “You cannot use the data you paid for to use this particular service”, and would have you pay Rs 100 for the data and additional money to use a service using that very data. A simple analogy: The electricity company sells you 100 units for Rs 900, and says you could use that energy to power TVs, ACs, etc. But should you use the units sold to charge your inverter, you would need to pay extra. The comparison of electricity with the internet is relevant because both are utilities.

The carrier gets revenue by charging customers for talk-time. Additionally, it sells 2G and 3G services. Carriers have been primarily geared towards selling talk-time. Selling internet services was secondary. They have been slow to react to the potential of third-party internet services. Consumers are replacing traditional texting with WhatsApp or Viber and traditional network calling with apps such as Skype. There is a very real danger that, in five years, carriers may earn no money from texting and calling.

Carriers argue that internet penetration in India, unlike developed Western nations, is poor. Huge investments need to be made in infrastructure. The revenues from charging the customer for data will not justify making that investment. There is some merit in that argument. This is where the government will have to step in and treat internet access as a utility and make investments in infrastructure.

But market disruption has been happening for aeons. This is simply an evolution. With evolution come casualties. In the case of the internet, it is the carriers’ existing business model. They will fight to prevent that because they know of no other model to sustain profits.

Currently, the carrier treats all third-party applications the same. What happens when one third-party application is treated favourably for monetary consideration? This is paid prioritisation. Right now, the internet is a great equaliser. One website will load just as fast as another. Now imagine Google pays the carrier to get into the “fast lane”. So while, say, Yahoo takes eight seconds to load, Google takes one. The consumer is highly disincentivised from visiting Yahoo.

This will lead to a situation where financially powerful companies will pay carriers while their rivals, even with better products, will be forced to see their sites load slowly. It will lead to a collapse of the start-up market and negatively impact innovation.

The second aspect of paid prioritisation is free data. Say WhatsApp pays carriers so that the data used for the app is not counted towards the consumer’s data cap. Again, the consumer is disincentivised to use its rivals. The problem arises when a clearly inferior product is given preference. This goes against the grain of the internet, where meritocracy rules.

In light of this, Facebook and Google’s recent decision to join the COAI (Cellular Operators Association of India) is worrying. The COAI counts among its members carriers like Airtel and Vodafone, lobbying the government and Trai to do away with net neutrality. This contradicts their stance in the US, where they joined a coalition of companies to advocate for net neutrality.

Carriers must stop trying to enforce old paradigms in a new marketplace. Otherwise, they will end up on the the wrong side of history.

The writer is a recent graduate from SRCC, Delhi University

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Sunday, April 12, 2015

YOUR FREEDOM IS UNDER SABOTAGE THREAT BY THE GREED OF MULTINATIONALS : YOUR INTRNET IS UNDER SUBVERSION

SOURCE
http://www.msn.com/en-in/news/other/your-internet-is-under-threat-aib-explains-why-life-will-be-hell-without-net-neutrality/ar-AAaTjFJ

Your Internet Is Under Threat: AIB Explains Why Life Will Be Hell Without Net Neutrality

The debate over net neutrality became a huge bone of contention when telecom major Bharti Airtel announced that it will launch 'Airtel Zero' that will give smartphone users free access to select internet sites or some organizations apps.

So for instance, Flipkart, which is part of Airtel Zero, can be accessed by Airtel subscribers for free and they would not have to pay for data charges. Later it was revealed that those companies will be paying for the data consumed by

the consumers across the country. Critics argue that this alters the nature of the Internet as a leveler where big players like Flipkart and smaller companies have equal access to consumers.

Net neutrality means when a service provider sells you data they don't get to choose how the data is used. The idea is that the Internet Service Provider, from whom you buy your internet pack, can't under control how exactly you use it. It is up to you and only you, how you wish to spend the 1GB 3G data pack you bought from your Internet Service Provider.So a service provider like Airel cannot discriminate, in terms of price or speed, between traffic from website A and website B.

By discriminating between traffic to Flipkart/any of the business entities that sign onto their Airtel Zero platform and those that do not, Airtel is most definitely violating the principle of net neutrality

And now stand-up comedy group AIB has come out with a superb video explaining why your life will be doomed without net neutrality.

The video in essence explains how open & free internet is essential for India. "Right at this very moment, Indian telecom companies are lobbying the Telecom Regulatory Authority Of India to enact a regulation in a way that will change the way Indians are using the internet forever." says Tanmay Bhat in the video.

The video explains how the telecom companies want to carve the internet sector and charge separately for each and every services we use.

After Flipkart pitched in to support Airtel to lobby against users with Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, All India Bakchod have done the needful to 'save', not 'break' the internet!

The video pleads the viewers to click to www.savetheinternet.com to send a mail to Telecom Regulation Authority of India to stop the telecom companies from changing the face of internet in India.

TRAI has released a document and is seeking your views through 20 questions. They are asking for your suggestions, here's your chance to make yourself heard. You can submit your answers to the TRAI before 24 April, 2015 at advqos@trai.gov.in.

Watch their latest video on Save The Internet below:

Net neutrality gets a big thumbs up from SRK

The video already has over three lakh views Even Bollywood actor Shah Rukh Khan shared the video with his 12.3 million followers and paired it with the hashtag #savetheinternet which is now trending on Twitter.

Following are some of the responses to Savetheinternet on

Twitter:

RT @Nishant_n: This image explains everything #savetheinternet #indiawantsnetneutrality http://www.savetheinternet.in/

4:29 AM - 12 Apr 2015

Watch their latest video on Save The Internet

Video player from: NDTV (Privacy Policy)

As Firstpost said earlier, "if there is no net neutrality, the Internet won't function as we've known it too. It will mean Internet Service Providers (ISP) will be able to charge companies like YouTube or Netflix as they consume more bandwidth, and eventually the load of the extra sum will be pushed to the consumers. Similarly, ISPs can then create slow as well as fast Internet lanes, which will mean all websites cannot be accessed at the same speed and one can do so only on paying an additional sum. For instance, currently, you have a standard data package and access all the content at the same speed, irrespective of whether its an international website or desi. Similarly, ISPs can also charge extra for the free calls you make using services like WhatsApp, Skype and others, and eventually the load of additional payable sum by the OTT players will be pushed onto consumers."

Read more about why you should care about net neutrality here