[SchumiFan]

I don't think the Flipkart-Airtel nexus alone caused this outrage. It was also the plan to charge for usage of FB/Whatsapp and other apps that let users bypass SMS/Calling services.

Not fully sure if this is correct though. Also Aircel used to offer free data access or at least didn't charge users with data usage for accessing FB/Whatsapp. Don't know what is their stance now that Whatsapp has introduced Calling Feature.

In any case, Airtel needs to ramp up its network. Currently it is like S**t in some parts of the city. I pay for 3G and most times I only get EDGE connectivity on the road.

Airtel shamelessly proclaims itself as the Smartphone network.

[kvish]

Originally Posted by ashlil

Consider this aspect, if you please. Team-BHP, because of the low revenue generated, cannot opt for Airtel zero. Now, commercial auto sites, being very rich, are there in the zero plan by paying hafta to airtel. In this case, do you think team-bhp would reach the deserved heights? Net-neutrality necessitates no positive discrimination as well as negative discrimination.

Do you think this is a valid business case? Let us assume you are paying 1Re for 100KB. For using the same pipe, even if commercial auto sites have to pay for your data usage, even at 10% of that cost, it will still not make any business sense as the cost of customer acquisition is too high because their revenue from the same web transaction is much lesser.

The only real users of airtel zero are going to be 'content consumption companies' who want you to try the service and sign up. Or online shopping websites which would like you to make impulsive purchases.

Originally Posted by apachelongbow

I am a little confused, so please bear with me on this.
How is airtel zero different from say tata sky pay per view or a boutique of services? If airtel wants you to access a couple of sites for free, and pay data usage for the rest, how will it affect the end user, in fact going ahead may be the end user can configure the data plans to cater to the types, and individual websites he/she wants to access.

In airtel zero, customer continues to have the same kind of option as before, just that if a content provider signs up with airtel, your usage of internet for that content provider would be paid by the content provider himself.

Originally Posted by zenren

Let us say this BMW and Nano are both heading to one of the 3 shopping malls in that direction. There is an elevated flyover that directly leads to one of these malls, though it is not their preferred choice and bypasses the other two. Eventually, most vehicles get frustrated with the traffic and decide to take the flyover. The owners of the Mall A (where flyover leads to) would probably bribe the government to ensure the traffic situation below the flyover doesn't improve and they benefit the most out of it. This is what would happen with Airtel Zero eventually.

I dont think airtel zero controls the pipe. Even the nano can go on the flyover and pay for the toll. If BMW is paying tolls for their users, it is their prerogative and very soon BMW will start looking for funds as it runs out of money.

Originally Posted by Samurai

You are wrong because tollfree phone service is something anybody can avail for a fixed fee. If flipkart got tollfree phone service, so can I. But Airtel Zero is not like that. Google gets it for free because Airtel needs Google more than Google needs Airtel.

I will disagree on this. There is so much google is trying to do to control the pipe. It needs the pipe badly than anyone else. Why is becoming an MVNO in the US? What about the blimp project. They want control of access as much as airtel wants control of web transactions.

Originally Posted by Samurai

But Flipkart has to do revenue sharing. If I want my customers to access my website for free, I have to do revenue sharing, not just pay some fixed fee. The revenue sharing can be heavily stacked against the small guy. See post #7 for a clear example.


Now let's go back your original example, tollfree phone. I'll show you why it is even more wrong analogy. The toll free phone has a fixed fee and is used for communicating with the customer. The service/product itself is not delivered through tollfree phone. Therefore, if the tollfree provider makes the phone service too expensive, I can switch to email/sms or whatapp to communicate with the customer. But Internet these days is not merely a mode of communication, it is how the service is delivered. If you are buying a streaming video service, it is delivered on the same pipe. If you have switched to cloud computing, you are accessing all your servers over Internet. All your customers are getting your products/services over Internet. If somebody steps on that pipe and chokes it, and demands a share of your revenue, you have nowhere to turn. If somebody does that to tollfree number, I can switch to a different tollfree provider in a day. But my customers could be connected to my cloud services via 100 different ISPs all over the world, whom all can I pay to lift their foot from the pipe?

Example: My service is hosted via ISP X, but my customers are on ISP A, B, C, D, etc. Without net neutrality, I have to make a revenue share deal with ISP A, B, C... to allow free traffic to my site.

Do you still think it is same as tollfree number?

I think this argument is confusing. How does going to different ISPs for your business needs go against net neutrality. If a unified platform for tollfree is what you are looking for, then that doesnt have anything to do with net neutrality.

Originally Posted by Lalvaz

While Airtel Zero is against the concept of "Net Neutrality" in the strict sense of the word, its a little surprising that it has evoked such a strong response from individual users, who incidentally will not have to shell out additional funds(At least not as of now). Consider that other telcos are currently bundling free net access to specific apps without any protests from anyone. The only logical reason for this huge protest seems to be the high levels of trust deficit that Airtel enjoys. Maybe Airtel needs to do some introspection to understand why they alone are being singled out for violating Net Neutrality, when others are already offering similar schemes.

I guess thats true with all wireless carriers across the world. Even after US adopted net neutrality, toll free data was not part of the services that got axed. Priority access, site based plans were the ones talked about which most likely faced the music.

I personally feel airtel zero got more attention than it deserved. As a service it will see few niche takers. 10-15 years ago there was an ISP called CALTIGER which provided free internet offset by advertising. It is in history books now.

[srishiva]

Originally Posted by Samurai

I don't see how he is absolutely right or even partially right.

QoS can depend on traffic, but which traffic?

Mobile phones send/receive payloads like voice, sms, user data and then signalling for the same. So if we consider 3 payloads and 3 signalling traffic, the QoS for them will be different because it serves the requirement of mobile networks.

But we are considering only user data here. The 3G uses HTTP for web traffic and RTSP for Youtube video, both are riding on TCP. Will the packets have different QoS, who is marking the DSCP bits on these packets? Is google marking the DSCP bits, are the mobile networks respecting the DSCP bits on packets coming from Youtube servers? If yes, why? Who paid them to respect the DSCP bits from Youtube servers?

When a call is to be placed, the reason and type of call is provided in the initial message. Everything happens based on this. Whether various applications do this, I am not sure. If carriers had their own apps, they would always do this.

Mobile networks do respect QoS, their own IP network, atleast upto their gateway not beyond that. You can look up QoS in mobile networks.

[::CMS::]

Originally Posted by kvish

very soon BMW will start looking for funds as it runs out of money.

Exactly, this is the issue, the "BMW" will charge from customers.. This will worse when each and everyone starts doing this or forced to do.

[StarrySky]

Originally Posted by Samurai

For voice, obviously. PSTN is entirely circuit switched even now, that means dedicated channel for each call.

This is not strictly true in case of LTE. PSTN may be circuit switched, but there is no circuit switching in LTE.

Originally Posted by Samurai

What StarrySky is saying is that if I am running Youtube in browser tab, and access Team-BHP in another browser tab, the 3G will assign different class channels to it. My contention is they won't.

I did not specifically say this. I only said that it is possible to differentiate between the two types of traffic (data intensive and non-data intensive or real-time and non-real time).

There is something called a "PDP Context" in UMTS networks that is used to negotiate QoS between the mobile and the operator's mobile network. A mobile can have multiple "PDP Context" active at the same time with different negotiated QoS. Packet data access needs atleast one "PDP Context".

So if your browser can negotiate two different "PDP Context" for two different tabs, then the two tabs can have different QoS as well. If you use T-BHP app and YouTube app separately, they will quite possibly use different "PDP Context" and have different QoS.

Even if they have the same negotiated QoS, the mobile network can assign a shared channel to T-BHP app based on usage and activity timers (i.e., you load a page and take few minutes to read it and there is no data transfer activity while you are reading).

Originally Posted by Samurai

Both will be given equal preference, and will be on a packet switched mode, not dedicated channels.

Could you check the link I posted earlier? If yes, you would see Dedicated Channel (DCH) - does it say anywhere that it is for voice only?

I'll give the most basic example on how those channels are used for browsing and streaming. If you start a browser, it can negotiate a QoS with the mobile network (PDP Context 1). Now the QoS can be lower since it is not very data intensive (there will be many periods of inactivity with few bursts of data traffic). This will mostly be catered to by FACH in downlink and RACH in uplink. These are shared channels, so there can be contention and your browsing can be slow. The moment you start YouTube app, it negotiates a higher QoS (PDP Context 2) and this needs a DCH to cater to its streaming video data rate demands. What will happen when you start streaming is that both your browser and your YouTube app will be allocated DCH with different data rates (this is simply because the mobile cannot use FACH and DCH at the same time). After your video session is done and your usage pattern goes back to the brower pattern, the network can remove both DCHs and ask the mobile to use only FACH. If you now start streaming a new video, then the DCHs need to be setup again - which takes some time. This is why you sometimes see "Buffering" when you start streaming and then not afterwards.

Originally Posted by Samurai

But we are considering only user data here. The 3G uses HTTP for web traffic and RTSP for Youtube video, both are riding on TCP. Will the packets have different QoS, who is marking the DSCP bits on these packets? Is google marking the DSCP bits, are the mobile networks respecting the DSCP bits on packets coming from Youtube servers? If yes, why? Who paid them to respect the DSCP bits from Youtube servers?

The PDP context activation will tell the mobile network what the user is trying to access. The mobile network operator can then use his own criteria (user subscription data, commercial agreements etc) to determine if the requested QoS can be provided to "this" user for "this" service.

[tsk1979]

Originally Posted by StarrySky

The mobile network operator can then use his own criteria (user subscription data, commercial agreements etc) to determine if the requested QoS can be provided to "this" user for "this" service.

This is the scary part. Support I start a video site "Honest video reviews" and your 3G provider is Airhell networks they can come to me and say : Buddy, if you do not pay me $$$ I am going to give max 20kbps to users on my network, and 2000kbps to "Dishonest video reviews, your competitor".

This is why net neutrality is important. If you are selling 3GB of data, then sell 3GB of data. Don't say "3GB of internet just for my buddy sites"

[spoth001]

Guys tell me something, I use cable net from Rajesh Cable and its pretty fast and cheap ! Will it be effected too ?

[Isnescrpy]

Originally Posted by Samurai

Why is FUP super expensive? It is just a matter of configuration. I am familiar with network programming and configurations. These are simple things to implement.

Sure, if you want to write policy filters based on source and destination IP, then you can use existing routers. But if you want to look beyond layer3, then that's where the hardware (and maintenance) gets expensive. Plus I have a feeling ISPs owing to their sheer traffic volume, have dedicated redundant hardware to do FUP.

Originally Posted by msdivy

If users have paid for bandwidth, it doesn't matter whether they use netflix or skype or whatsapp or any other service. Why should ISP bother?

You are absolutely right. ISP should not care what you are using your Internet connection for. But the problem is that bandwidth is a finite resource. And when 50% of an ISPs traffic is Netlix, then the ISP will start to take notice. Its only a matter of time (4K streaming) before other services - email, cloud services and so on get affected.

Originally Posted by rajeshsundaram

There are no cost involved in configuration. The real cost to ISPs is all about the buying and installing hardware, and manage a scalable Infrastructure.

Yes, hardware (and maintenance) is expensive.

[Chetan_Rao]

Originally Posted by Isnescrpy

......Its only a matter of time (4K streaming) before other services - email, cloud services and so on get affected.......

Bandwidth will always be a finite resource, but the way to get around that is to improve infrastructure. If spectrum is an issue, it's upto the govt. to release more unused blocked spectrum for commercial use via auctions. Needless to mention, the service providers need to be honest with their consumers, instead of promising them unrealistic service just to con them into paying up, then act helpless as if they didn't anticipate the demand. 'Don't promise what you can't deliver' should be ethics 101 really. Oh well.

"I can only support a limited number of internet resources so I'll choose the ones that pay me extra and throttle the ones that don't" is NOT the way to go about it!

[Jaggu]

Originally Posted by Samurai

ISP should only give us a pipe into the Internet with certain bandwidth (say 16Mbps) and certain volume (say 80GB/month) for a certain price. That's it. They shouldn't poke their nose into where we connect using that pipe. That is net neutrality.

Samurai has explained in very clear and simple english what net neutrality is or the expectation towards maintaining it from an internet service provider is.

Originally Posted by Samurai

What makes me really scared is whether the law makers will understand this well enough to make the right decision.

Again this is a VERY SCARY part, chanced upon some more details of the report where the whole story has been spun in a very different manner. Basically it has pulled in angle of making internet as a medium of wrong influence and that it can be used in psychological war fare. I am NOT kidding!

Another angle is the lobbyist, trust me it is THE reality, crores change hands influencing such yummy business deal and what we get at the end of the day depends on who has more money power. Even when Trai or Govt say we listen to you and we will not take action, that will not be the case. Things happen very silently and smoothly even without anyone knowing about it.

Originally Posted by srishiva

StarrySky is absolutely right. Channels are assigned based on type of traffic.
======= There are even classes of user Platinum, Gold etc.

Even i have heard similar info on network access given by wireless operators. Infact someone senior from the industry made a slip of the tongue remark on public television saying you guys are fooling yourself if you think its all neutral right now and there are no restrictions.

Originally Posted by tsk1979

This is the scary part. Support I start a video site "Honest video reviews" and your 3G provider is Airhell networks they can come to me and say : Buddy, if you do not pay me $$$ I am going to give max 20kbps to users on my network, and 2000kbps to "Dishonest video reviews, your competitor".

This is why net neutrality is important. If you are selling 3GB of data, then sell 3GB of data. Don't say "3GB of internet just for my buddy sites"

To add to this there are simple logic to business, ie to make money and there is nothing called free money out there. If you are being provided free access, then it is footed by someone out there. And that someone would either make more money OR take that from you eventually. So at the end of the day consumer is going to suffer.

As far calling it as hotline, i think it is carefully planted word in public space by the telecom company.

Originally Posted by Chetan_Rao

Bandwidth will always be a finite resource, but the way to get around that is to improve infrastructure.
======
"I can only support a limited number of internet resources so I'll choose the ones that pay me extra and throttle the ones that don't" is NOT the way to go about it!

We are no where close to consuming the available spectrum in this country at least EDIT: maybe in the urban area it is crowded, rural penetration is even now minimal and that is where samrt infra investment is needed. Do you think the telecom companies got carried away with competition and paid the current bid prices to outbid each other? There is huge huge revenue potential for them, they have just started and if they manage to influence against the concept of neutrality, there potential to earn will just multiply.

EDIT 2: Was reading up earlier and i believe moving all TV transmission to digital signal itself will relieve a good deal of spectrum. This was done in US and i am sure we are also on the same path with all this digitization etc

This is just the first move of a very long and ugly fight, i will keep my fingers crossed and hope freedom wins eventually over private commercial interest.

[techiecal]

Now that Flipkart has opted out of Airtel Zero we can breathe easy. Flipkart's about turn is bound to have after effects on TRAI as well as Airtel. It was good to hear that Flipkart wholeheartedly supports Net Neutrality too.

[alpha1]

Airtel has made it clear that Airtel Zero will not get any priority over other websites.
Airtel zero is only providing means of "financing" the user's data plan.

Reading more about it, I see that Airtel Zero is a separate issue and Net neutrality is a different issue altogether.

http://tech.firstpost.com/news-analy...ad-263373.html
http://www.thehindu.com/business/Ind...cle7102147.ece

Looks like kvish has been right all along.


What would be violation of net neutrality is charging extra for say: VOIP data vs wikipedia data.
In Zero case, Airtel is charging LESS (because it is financed by the seller website say flipkart) than the usual rate. It is not that Airtel is offering discount for flipkart.

And about all the talks about predatory behviour - large established player vs small startup. Sorry, the case is same in real brick and mortar life. We have predatory pricing by the large player. And there is nothing wrong about it. If someone wants to make losses instead of profit - he has full freedom to do so.


http://www.thehindu.com/business/net...ef=relatedNews

“We believe that in the guise of net neutrality if we’re starting things that suggest neutrality, then next step would be to abolish licensing regime, and get on a free for all,” he said, adding in such a case, there is no need for companies to pay high premia for spectrum.

100% agree with him.
(In fact I remember I had also lamented about how telecom sector is licenses and therefore curtails the free market movements and alternatives available for choice)

[Jaggu]

Originally Posted by alpha1

Reading more about it, I see that Airtel Zero is a separate issue and Net neutrality is a different issue altogether.

This is classic Marketing (emm bee yaaa) talk to misguide us. Why would you opt for something which is paid? if you can access a similar service free?

Such acts are biased and manipulative which goes against the concept of net neutrality to be shown by a internet service provider.

[alpha1]

Originally Posted by Jaggu

This is classic Marketing (emm bee yaaa) talk to misguide us. Why would you opt for something which is paid? if you can access a similar service free?

Such acts are biased and manipulative which goes against the concept of net neutrality to be shown by a internet service provider.

If we go along what you suggest, then there would NEVER be any downward price revision of anything in this world.

Because your price police will go about arresting the seller which starts offering lower price first, by saying that offering low price is manipulative practise and will cause a bias in the mind of buyer.


This is not how capitalism works.

[Pri2]

Originally Posted by alpha1

Airtel has made it clear that Airtel Zero will not get any priority over other websites.
Airtel zero is only providing means of "financing" the user's data plan.

Reading more about it, I see that Airtel Zero is a separate issue and Net neutrality is a different issue altogether.

http://tech.firstpost.com/news-analy...ad-263373.html
http://www.thehindu.com/business/Ind...cle7102147.ece

Looks like kvish has been right all along.


What would be violation of net neutrality is charging extra for say: VOIP data vs wikipedia data.
In Zero case, Airtel is charging LESS (because it is financed by the seller website say flipkart) than the usual rate. It is not that Airtel is offering discount for flipkart.

I cannot believe that people still don't get it. If the Flipkart app becomes free on the Airtel network without a paid data plan, it automatically get priority over Amazon, Snapdeal and ebay. People have to pay money to access them. Isn't this discrimination against the other sites? Just because it is free doesn't mean it isn't discriminatory.

You cannot compare brick and mortar stores with online stores while talking about net neutrality, All traffic should be treated the same while accessing the open & free internet. No one is stopping the brick and mortar stores from opening their own ecommerce sites. But if established players have exclusive deals with telecom operators and ISPs, how can these stores compete if they decide to go the online way?