Imagine a situation when your electricity company says you have to purchase aLuxury Pack to use an air conditioner; you have to buy a Necessity Pack to use your refrigerator; you need to purchase a Comfort Pack to use your hair dryer or an electric trimmer.
And then they say,
How does that make you feel? Not good, right?
In a certain sense, internet is not a lot different from electricity.
Electricity companies are neutral.
They just charge us based on the number of units of electricity that we consume. We, as consumers, can use electricity the way we want to and we can buy products and favor brands that we love. It is our choice and ours alone.
So, what is Net Neutrality?
Net Neutrality means exactly the same thing, but here it is about the data that we consume on the internet.
In broad terms, Net neutrality states that internet service providers (companies like Airtel, Vodafone etc.) should not discriminate the way I choose to use the internet or the brands I use to surf the internet:
For Example: I use an Airtel's post paid connection and I use the following applications...
Quora: To write long and often boring answers :)
WhatsApp: To message my friends and to never reply back :P
GMail: For my personal mail id when looking for a new job :)
YouTube: To watch Roger Federer, over and over again.
But now if Airtel comes up and says...
and they say this too...
This is in clear violation of net neutrality and Airtel (as an internet service provider) is forcing me to change the way I browse internet and also pulling me into brands which I may not really prefer.
Airtel tried doing something similar to this late last year (by charging for VoIP services like Skype, Viber etc) but TRAI (Telecom Regulatory Authority of India) came into the picture and put this on hold around December 2014. You can read more about this in an external article here.
So, this was about net neutrality. What is Airtel Zero then?
[Edit: Flipkart has pulled out of Airtel Zero today. The answer was written yesterday. Please view the answer as such.]
This is basically a collaboration between Airtel and certain other companies (like Flipkart) in which the consumers (like you and me) do not have to pay for the data that they consume to use their applications (like Flipkart's app).
It is not clear as to what these other companies are, or how many of them are there, but from what it looks like, it seems Flipkart is one of them.
So, a few things would happen here:
1. An Airtel customer can browse Flipkart for free.
Flipkart would then pay a certain amount to Airtel based on the data consumed on a monthly basis.
Do notice one thing here. If you use Snapdeal or Amazon, you don't pay anything extra. But if you are using Flipkart, it is free for you.
So clearly, it seems like a benefit right.
But think again. It is not. If you love Snapdeal as a brand, you are forced to switch over.
2. An Airtel customer would have to pay for the data if they want to use a competitor's application.
Example: SnapDeal or Amazon.
You don't actually pay for it by cash, but in a way you do, because you can browse Flipkart for free, but you consume data while browsing other sites.
Why is this not good for us as consumers?
1. Forced to change brands: A lot of consumers might move to what is free rather that what they would love to use.
2. Forced to change our usage behavior: You may not be able to share aYouTube video with a friend, because he hasn't purchased the 'Videos Pack'.
3. Discourages competition: If I decide to start an e-commerce company to compete with the likes of Flipkart, I would literally get killed. I do not have the money to partner with telecom majors. And why would you download the app of my unknown e-commerce company when you can browse Flipkart for free?
4. Other companies would be forced to do the same:
Being a prominent player in the market, Airtel would set an example which other players would also have to follow.
I would be surprised if companies like Vodafone haven't already started to think about a competing service similar to Airtel Zero. So we might end up in a situation where SnapDeal would partner with Vodafone, Amazon would partner with Docomo and we, as consumers, would only get lost.
I am sorry. No neutrality here, Sheldon. You cannot have both XBox and Playstation.
Internet is fast becoming a necessity.
Gone are the days of Roti, Kapda Aur Makaan (food, clothing and shelter) which stood as a perpetual slogan reflecting the basic necessities of life.
We are now moving into an era of:
Roti, Kapda, Makaan Aur Bandwidth!!
And it is imperative that we make the right choices.
Disclaimer: Personally, I think all the companies at the moment are doing everything in a legal manner. But the regulation around this area needs to be looked at again to pave a way forward.
TRAI is seeking responses and your views on this.
You might also like this:
1) How are Ola and FreeCharge sustaining their business in spite of lots of schemes, free rides and cashback offers?
2) India Vs Pakistan Military Comparison
3) Choose Your Products Carefully
4)Do You Really Know Him/Her , Or you know the one he/she pretends to be??
And then they say,
"Hey, I would give you a 50% discount if you use Voltas air conditioners. But no discount if you use other brands."
How does that make you feel? Not good, right?
In a certain sense, internet is not a lot different from electricity.
Electricity companies are neutral.
They just charge us based on the number of units of electricity that we consume. We, as consumers, can use electricity the way we want to and we can buy products and favor brands that we love. It is our choice and ours alone.
So, what is Net Neutrality?
Net Neutrality means exactly the same thing, but here it is about the data that we consume on the internet.
In broad terms, Net neutrality states that internet service providers (companies like Airtel, Vodafone etc.) should not discriminate the way I choose to use the internet or the brands I use to surf the internet:
For Example: I use an Airtel's post paid connection and I use the following applications...
Quora: To write long and often boring answers :)
WhatsApp: To message my friends and to never reply back :P
GMail: For my personal mail id when looking for a new job :)
YouTube: To watch Roger Federer, over and over again.
But now if Airtel comes up and says...
"Hi, we have partnered with Hike messenger and by using Hike you can have unlimited data transfer. But we noticed that you are using WhatsAppand we have not partnered with them, so using it would result in data consumption."
and they say this too...
"Hi, YouTube will not work on your device because you haven't subscribed to the Videos Pack that we are offering.
This is in clear violation of net neutrality and Airtel (as an internet service provider) is forcing me to change the way I browse internet and also pulling me into brands which I may not really prefer.
Airtel tried doing something similar to this late last year (by charging for VoIP services like Skype, Viber etc) but TRAI (Telecom Regulatory Authority of India) came into the picture and put this on hold around December 2014. You can read more about this in an external article here.
So, this was about net neutrality. What is Airtel Zero then?
[Edit: Flipkart has pulled out of Airtel Zero today. The answer was written yesterday. Please view the answer as such.]
This is basically a collaboration between Airtel and certain other companies (like Flipkart) in which the consumers (like you and me) do not have to pay for the data that they consume to use their applications (like Flipkart's app).
It is not clear as to what these other companies are, or how many of them are there, but from what it looks like, it seems Flipkart is one of them.
So, a few things would happen here:
1. An Airtel customer can browse Flipkart for free.
Flipkart would then pay a certain amount to Airtel based on the data consumed on a monthly basis.
Do notice one thing here. If you use Snapdeal or Amazon, you don't pay anything extra. But if you are using Flipkart, it is free for you.
So clearly, it seems like a benefit right.
But think again. It is not. If you love Snapdeal as a brand, you are forced to switch over.
2. An Airtel customer would have to pay for the data if they want to use a competitor's application.
Example: SnapDeal or Amazon.
You don't actually pay for it by cash, but in a way you do, because you can browse Flipkart for free, but you consume data while browsing other sites.
Why is this not good for us as consumers?
1. Forced to change brands: A lot of consumers might move to what is free rather that what they would love to use.
2. Forced to change our usage behavior: You may not be able to share aYouTube video with a friend, because he hasn't purchased the 'Videos Pack'.
3. Discourages competition: If I decide to start an e-commerce company to compete with the likes of Flipkart, I would literally get killed. I do not have the money to partner with telecom majors. And why would you download the app of my unknown e-commerce company when you can browse Flipkart for free?
4. Other companies would be forced to do the same:
Being a prominent player in the market, Airtel would set an example which other players would also have to follow.
I would be surprised if companies like Vodafone haven't already started to think about a competing service similar to Airtel Zero. So we might end up in a situation where SnapDeal would partner with Vodafone, Amazon would partner with Docomo and we, as consumers, would only get lost.
Internet is fast becoming a necessity.
Gone are the days of Roti, Kapda Aur Makaan (food, clothing and shelter) which stood as a perpetual slogan reflecting the basic necessities of life.
We are now moving into an era of:
Roti, Kapda, Makaan Aur Bandwidth!!
And it is imperative that we make the right choices.
Disclaimer: Personally, I think all the companies at the moment are doing everything in a legal manner. But the regulation around this area needs to be looked at again to pave a way forward.
TRAI is seeking responses and your views on this.
You might also like this:
1) How are Ola and FreeCharge sustaining their business in spite of lots of schemes, free rides and cashback offers?
2) India Vs Pakistan Military Comparison
3) Choose Your Products Carefully
4)Do You Really Know Him/Her , Or you know the one he/she pretends to be??
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