One of the best features of the social media revolution is our ability to share and forget. Take Israel, take ISIS, take net neutrality – we can always share, feel dignified, vindicated or whatever-ed and then forget about it. Of course, we aren’t illiterates, we read up an approximate of five lines of bold and beautiful text that starts with “You won’t believe…” and ends with “make you go wow” before we hit share. That is all fine and asinine, except that that’s not going to change the world. Or the internet. Or your telecom operator’s policies.
So is this a call to action against the proposed violation of net neutrality by telcos in India ? Nope, that’s for the barking dogs. I’m here to discuss quite the opposite.
Net Neutrality – What the hell is it ?
First off, what is net neutrality ? A certain comedian group turned crusading circus would have you believe that net neutrality means all content on the internet should be treated equally, regardless of where it is going, what it is for and who is holding the trampoline. They’re right in the first part, somewhat right in the second and damn wrong in the last.
Now let’s break it down to edible morsels shall we ? Net neutrality is about treating all data in a “tube” the same. Take a pipe of water for instance – you can install valves, but they would filter all water the same way. You can’t filter water from different sources (even if one is a leaking sewage pipe) differently. The reason you can’t filter it, despite owning the piping, paying for the water and the faucets is that it is not possible (pardon my French).
The internet is different. Here deep packet inspection and other tech allow the owners of the piping to figure out where data is going and what it is for. Contrary to what the dogs would have you believe, nothing and no one in the world can prevent telecom operators from learning what you are sending or receiving, as long as it is not encrypted. Why ? Because they own the pipes and just like you’d like to find out where your tenant is getting all that water from and what she is using it for (such that it comes out all muddy and soapy), telcos have the right to find out if you’re watching porn or selfies of your beautiful female friends (poor contrast, I know).
Now I mentioned that the crusading circus was right about net neutrality allowing all data to flow freely regardless of the source. I stand by this statement. In fact, while the operator may find out what you are browsing, it cannot prevent you from browsing it until and unless the said content, site or resource is banned by the government (in which case it has an obligation to block it).
Coming to the second point – what it is for – matters turn a little grey. You see, beyond a point it is not possible to tell what a packet of data is for. We can say packet 001343535649839 is going from a Facebook server to a user’s computer as part of an image of a girl in a bikini. Trouble is, we have no way of finding out what the user would do with that image. He may show it to his parents or open up photoshop and….never mind.
The point is that the motives of the user cannot be learned. If this cannot be learned, it is difficult to discriminate between packets of data in the first place. For instance, Comcast has been known to slow down P2P traffic (torrents) thinking it is used to share pirated media. However, it is also true that some legit brands and companies make their content available by torrent. How is the company to know if the matter is legit or illegit ? If it does know that the content is illegit, it has to get that verified by the government (or act on a government order). In such case, it must block the content, and not simply slow it down. Slowing is a competitive practice, blocking a prohibitive one.
At the end of the day, the operator may claim moral high ground to block some traffic and cite uncertainty to slow down others. Users may challenge such actions as violative of their right to freedom and freedom of expression. Matters would go to court and stay there for a very long time.
Let’s come down to the third point – users should be treated equally regardless of whose network they are on. There may be some vague legal backing for this, but let’s face it – once we’re on some network, it’s damn hard to move out of it. If we don’t, we have to abide by their rules, which in all fairness, are extremely varied. Companies can and do charge arbitrarily and raise and throttle data speeds whimsically. They can take different approaches to the same site and channel traffic accordingly. They can do all this because they are not bound by any laws except the broad TRAI framework to behave in a certain manner.
Perhaps the barking dogs don’t know all this, but at this point we’ve left them sniffing at the fence and pissing on it. Now that the what of net neutrality is out of the way, let’s turn to the Indian scene (ie go back to their territory so they can “show us the way”). The dogs have left a certain pungent smell in the environs, but nevertheless…..
The Indian “Net Neutrality” Debate. Oh Really ?
Indian net neutrality hounds have two specific problems. One is called a TRAI paper, the other is called Airtel Zero or Reliance’s Internet.org. Let’s begin with the TRAI paper. The paper basically says that telecom operators do not realize any benefits from OTT (over the top) services ie those that freeride on the existing data streams created and maintained by the operators. For instance, services like WhatsApp or Skype, both of which use operator data to provide services and make money without the operator getting a dime for the service itself. This when the OTT services compete directly with the other services provided by the operator.
Let’s put this in layman terms. You have a room in a house that you want to rent out. You rent it out for a certain amount of money assuming that the water, electricity and other bills would be paid separately by the tenant. A tenant moves in and starts paying the rent along with the other bills. A few months later, he/she stops paying the electricity bill. You check you metre reading and realize that he/she has stopped drawing electricity from your line. On inquiry, you find that he/she has installed a generator in the premises.
You : “You didn’t tell me you installed a generator…”
Tenant : “Why should I ? I pay you rent and can do whatever I like with the premises I rent”
You : “ I never gave you permission to use a generator, it can cause problems for me.”
Tenant : “So ? Didn’t I say that I RENT YOUR PREMISES ? I CAN DO WHATEVER I LIKE WITH IT.”
You : “No you can’t. Nowhere did I agree that you would use a generator! If you have to use one, you’ve to pay an additional amount.”
Tenant : “Nowhere did you disagree either. I’ll pay for the rooms and nothing more. Do what you like!”
Normally you’d evict the tenant rather than stand such an attitude. The problem with telcos is that –
- they operate in a dirt poor market where people spend measly amounts of money to upload their selfies (or masturbate to them).
- use of OTT services like the generator are widespread and cannot be stopped by evicting users because of competition.
- the original services offered by the landlord – the electricity line – is a vital source of revenue for the telcos because they constitute voice minutes, SMS and so on. In fact, such has been the success of WhatsApp and its multimedia sharing options that the once infamous MMS has now all but disappeared.
In such circumstances, use of generators can cause serious financial loss since
- telcos’ own services are falling out of favour, thereby causing losses.
- they are not earning enough selling data to recuperate the losses.
The only answer to this conundrum is to charge people for using OTT services, or to charge those selling them. The problem with charging those selling them is that these are California-based groups that have some serious PR connect with the average Joe or Jane. Hence, while Facebook’s Internet.org gets battered, nobody questions Facebook’s right to piggyback on operator data and make lucrative profits even when the telcos have been crying hoarse over it.
In fact, a certain gang of jokers would go so far as to say that because telcos didn’t develop the apps or services, they have no right to the revenue earned. Tell the Indian government to stop charging road taxes because it didn’t build the vehicles. Good luck!
The solution is to charge the consumers, those world-saving do-gooders whose sharing and caring of frivolous and artificial posts is making the world go round the wrong way. The problem with this approach is that
NOBODY WANTS TO PAY UP
Rather, they would spam TRAI for putting out a consultation paper, create ludicrous websites like savetheinternet.in and of course, make idiotic videos.
Of course, telecom operators aren’t complete idiots, and being run by the who’s who of the corporate world, have better IQ than the average denizen of Facebook. While lobbying with TRAI, they try to make some money by offering these supposedly cash-strapped trolls cheap packs dedicated to using a specific service. Use a generator and pay us for using a generator. You don’t have to pay for water and you won’t get water. Makes sense ?
The consumers cry – No, it is against our blithery blah blah rights. Plan scrapped.
In fact, they drag entirely unrelated plans into the net neutrality debate. Take Reliance’s Internet.org system, by which a certain group of companies (the same that otherwise cannot be made to part with their revenues by the telcos) willingly pay for providing their services to customers using an operator’s network. Operator still doesn’t get paid anything extra for OTT services, but just for the user’s data usage. Such payment helps spread the services, but is largely a philanthropic move by some of the large service providers through the operators to bring these services to areas where people can’t even afford to pay for data.
As always though, Indians need a government stamp to realize something is truly non-partisan and actually meant to help the poor. Middle class mud-mouths complain that providing certain sites and services for free discriminates against others. For instance, Reliance’s Internet.org system provides only Bing as the search engine. These partisans rise up in defence of Google, without the company itself having to raise a finger. I did say these companies have good PR connect, didn’t I ?
Secondly, there is the concept of Airtel Zero. Here too, companies pay Airtel for the usage of customers. This is less of a philanthropic venture, and more of an attempt to create a platform whereby a 1-800 system of “toll free” services are created. Again, the same arguments of discrimination turn up.
Problem is, no one can point out just how the discrimination takes place. If you pay for a taxi (or your organization does) of course you’re entitled to a taxi. This doesn’t mean the bus will be slowed down to allow the taxi to go through. Neither does it mean that the taxi will be given green lights at all traffic signals to the disadvantage of other traffic. These services are meant to provide shift the onus of payment, not to create fast lanes. Further, not one instance of actual negative discrimination by Indian telcos has been found or reported. All complaints are hypothetical, and they’re helping some aforesaid Cali companies.
To sum it up then, the question of net neutrality is a valid one, but in India in the present context, an invalid one simply because violation is nowhere to be found. Telcos are trying to find ways to get users to pay for generators they’re installing at the cost of the telcos’ own services, on the network created by the telcos. This is unrelated to the attempts to offer free lanes (and not fast lanes!) and must not be mixed up with net neutrality because – as mentioned above – it is a fallacy to think that all operators will treat all sites the same way.
What this debate boils down to then is the perennial desire of the Indian social network butterfly to pay next to nothing for premium services he/she uses. Since service providers and apps like Facebook, WhatsApp and others can freeride on the backs of the operators’ networks and data, they can provide the basic services to Indians for free while raking in profits through ads, etc. Operators cannot do so, simply because they have to pay for creating and keeping the network in good shape. The California companies win out in the price war, and net (oh the pun!) result is that Indians gravitate towards the OTT providers by looking at their wallets.
Nothing wrong with that, I say. Your money, you do as you like, you spend it as you like. Just stop sugaring your plain economic desires in the garb of something that is completely different from what your true interests are. Stop dragging net neutrality through the mud so you can save two pennies, my dear Indians.