Notes on Free Basics.

I am sure everyone has read reams of text, for and against, Free Basics in India, including the most recent update that it’s now banned by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India. I wanted to learn what this was all really about and ended up making some notes over the last few weeks. Putting them here!

So, first the core issue. We have lots of people not connected to the Internet in India, a whole lot! This is a real problem and everyone seems to agree. The solution is obvious — provide ‘fast and cheap’ Internet and get everyone online. Great, but how can we do this? I think everyone also agrees that this is really hard (for now). Telecom revenue models, policy, etc don’t align very well with this ideal. Too many reasons but let’s just say that this has not happened at the rate at which it was supposed to. There are a few interesting initiatives, but none have achieved the necessary scale locally or have the potential to extend globally.

As a side note, there are projects at Google, Facebook and others aimed at solving exactly this core issue. Those balloon and drone articles are all about these initiatives. The timelines, however, on these are uncertain and they also need a whole lot of regulatory approvals everywhere. So, great we have these initiatives for the long term, but the question is what do we do in the interim?

One approach is to wait for the gradual and inevitable commoditization of data services, or for one of these aforementioned initiatives to materialize so that one day everyone can access the full power of the Internet that you and I enjoy today. This waiting seems illogical, not to mention inhumane. I don’t think the harshest critics of Free Basics advocate this either, but some seem to end up implying this when not suggesting a viable alternative. So why not use Free Basics in the interim?

Just quickly, two facts I gathered about Free Basics that I found often misrepresented or under-played by critics:

1. Any telco can choose to collaborate with Facebook to offer Free Basics to its customers
2. Any website / service / platform in the world can choose to be part of Free Basics

So the choice to not join Free Basics is not all of Facebook’s to make! (A fair thing to say? If not, why?)

That said, there is this criticism that to participate, one will have to adhere to Facebook’s policies and this is simply annoying, especially for rivals like Google. This deters participation, thereby creating a platform where only Facebook and its friends dominate. Seems like a legitimate concern.

So, what if this happened? What if Facebook open-sourced Free Basics! Architect (possibly rebuild) the platform such that it can be open-sourced. Invite other tech companies, big and small, global and local, to help manage and contribute to the platform. Any telco or phone-maker should be able to adopt / fork the code, make the necessary configuration and offer Free Basics to its customers. Essentially, Free Basics goes from being a Facebook-run thing into an open codebase! Could this work? Why not. . ? I mean Free Basics when looked at dispassionately does seem like a great bet for the interim!