Let’s make 2016 the year everyone tries to get India online

Enough talk, let’s get down to action

I began writing this post a few days back as yet another one targeting Facebook’s Free Basics, focussing on a bunch of Twitter debates between “Net Neutrality Activists”¹ and @mikeatfacebook², a VP at Facebook as per his bio. Before I could even get mid-way, however, I got tired of putting out the same arguments so many of us have been doing for a fairly long time. This is something I’ve let known on Twitter itself.

I’m tired of talking about Net Neutrality and Free Basics. Considering so many people do care about it, let’s get everyone together, brainstorm, and put our time and resources to actual productive use.

2015 was a great year

There was never a doubt in my mind that the Battle for Net Neutrality would one day come to India, having seen it be fought out in the US. The simple reason for this was always going to be the humongous population that had yet to get a taste of the internet. With almost every individual owning a cellphone by the end of the naughties, it was only a matter of time (and infrastructure) that they would soon discover the web.

The community’s reaction to Airtel Zero and Facebook Free Basics in the first half the year was amazing — personally, I never expected to see such a mass movement with most of my engineering friends themselves unaware of Net Neutrality. John Oliver certainly played his part, so did All India Bakchod, but it was mostly down to the amazing guys at savetheinternet.in.

Do not underestimate how dangerously close we were to doomsday — a number of companies with deep pockets signed up for Airtel Zero and Free Basics because it suited them, with most withdrawing only when they saw the outrage. The fact that TRAI finally asked Reliance to hold off on Free Basics despite the millions spent by Facebook to sway opinion goes to show effective the savetheinternet.in campaign was.

Building on the Momentum

I will say this at the end of 2015 — I am grateful for Airtel Zero and Facebook’s Free Basics. Thanks to them, millions of Indians are now aware of something called Net Neutrality. More importantly, everyone seems to be on the same page that we need to get more people to access the internet. This momentum needs to be carried forward into 2016.

One important bit of data that we need to keep in mind is the organic growth of the internet userbase in India: by the middle of 2015, we were up to 354 million internet subscribers, adding over 100 million in the preceding year. If IAMAI’s predictions were true, there are about 400 million as of today, and by mid-2016 we would exceed USA in terms of internet subscribers.

This was led in large parts by the increasing smartphone market, improved coverage and just a genuine desire from Indians to come online and consume more content and connect with friends. No external philanthropic assistance was required to make this happen.

The Need for Net Neutral Alternatives

The ugly side of that data is that nearly a billion people are yet to come online. While market forces will do their bit, it is in our own interests to come up with alternative, net neutral models to speed up the process even more.

Facebook claims to have data on their side, with statements such as “40% of Indians convert to a full data pack after a month of Free Basics”. While that data needs to be taken with a pinch of salt³, it will not be easy to fight against Free Basics and their ilk on rhetoric and theory alone for too long.

Even if Free Basics rids itself of some of its’ biggest drawbacks⁴, any solution that doesn’t guarantee the entire web to users is against net neutrality. As such, the question arises — is there anything that carriers, governments and other stakeholders can do that is in the best interests of every party, yet be net neutral?

Aircel, for example, is offering 500Mb a month of 64Kbps data in Tamil Nadu. While 64Kbps hardly provides an enjoyable experience, let’s not forget that’s what most of us were on about 4–5 years ago before the 3G days. Combined with data saving products like Google Web Light, Chrome Data Saver, and even apps targeting such users like Facebook’s own Lite app, I wouldn’t be surprised if the experience is good enough for a number of users.

Stakeholders need to get a room and solve this

Carriers are looking at ways to get users hooked to consuming more data. While most are aimed at users who are already connected, many alliances have been formed with handset manufacturers to provide a certain amount of data for free with every new handset.

And, ultimately, let’s not forget the big elephant in the room — Reliance Jio. The other Ambani sibling revolutionized the telecom industry in the country with Reliance Communications back in 2002–2003. Cellphones were suddenly affordable to a completely new demographic. The fact is, there simply hasn’t been enough of a competitive pricing battle on mobile internet yet in India.

What I would rather see is a model where the Government plays a role in incentivizing carriers to bring more citizens online as part of the spectrum licensing. Ever since the 2G scam made waves, it seems as if the DoT’s goal is simply to maximize its’ own revenue, instead of looking at the bigger picture.

Ultimately, coming a full circle as the tweet shared above, all key stakeholders need to commit to experimenting with different models in 2016. Those with ideas to solve this should be able to propose them, with each proposal rebutted with factual data. Until we can find that there is no net neutral way to increase the penetration of data services, Zero Rating of any form should not be permitted.

I do agree with Facebook’s high level mission, but it needs to come with a rider

1. We’ve been called activists by other entities, such as Facebook. I think it applies better to people like Kiran Jonnalagadda and Nikhil Pahwa, who’ve genuinely fought the tough fight when they had other, more selfish things to do. I’ve only jumped into arguments if I had the time, which was more frequent in December after having left Haptik.
2. I reached out to @mikeatfacebook for his full name, which he declined to offer for personal reasons. He did explain them to me, and I believe it’s only fair to maintain his privacy. Typically, this would have raised questions to his authenticity, but the fact that nobody from Facebook has raised any concerns against his account in recent discussions (including the Reddit AMA), I do not doubt that he is a VP at Facebook.
   I should also mention that he was given early access to read this post, raised concerns about my use of the term “doomsday”, questioned why we needed to take the 40% figure “with a pinch of salt”, and requested I look into more cases where Zero Rating was allowed.
3. How many of those users were already online before through other means? What would have been the conversion of a similar set of users if they were given a limited amount of free data to be used on the entire web for a month? In short, a proper A/B test to prove the Free Basics model is what converted them.
4. Dual certification for HTTPS, holding on to user data for 90 days, and the need for Facebook to be involved at all if telcos are picking up the tab.