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To charges that its new 'Airtel Zero' platform violated net-neutrality, Bharti Airtel said this new offering for application providers was open, non-discriminatory and imposed no difference in speed or price between players.
Srini Gopalan, the company's director of consumer business, said: "What we are offering is a product platform just like a toll-free number works. When you dial Domino's Pizza, for instance, you don't pay for the call; the company which uses the marketing tool pays to the telco."
Announcement of the platform's launch was on Monday - companies, including start-ups, can offer apps for free. The app maker will pay for the customer's free usage to the operator.
Net neutrality means all internet-based sites or services should be treated equally, with no discrimination in terms of speed and cost of access. Gopalan said the offer met the neutrality principle.
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"We have already got interest from over 100 application companies, big and small," he said. "Our platform is non-discriminatory, where there is a common rate card paid, based on usage, the same for all companies, irrespective of whether the application provider is big or small. And, there is no difference in speed. Companies which do not want to come to the platform will not be discriminated against -- they will continue to get the same speeds. Only customers have to pay for the usage as they do now." He says their offer is simple. Application providers can join Airtel Zero and get access to 200-plus million mobile customers. Bharti will market the applications for them through various means like SMS, etc, the main cost of popularising an application. For this, the application company will have to pay based on data usage to the telco. The latter will not charge for the data the customer uses. Based on a pilot project, they'd found marketing costs, key for such companies, will come down by two-thirds, a big saving even after paying for the service.
Backdrop issue
Telecom operators say they've invested hugely in acquiring spectrum and setting up infrastructure but entities offering OTT (Over The Top) services (such as WhatsApp, Skype, Facebook) are getting a free run, impacting their revenues.
Rajan Mathews, director-general, Cellular Operators Association of India, said: "We will put forth our views on net neutrality to the government. We will soon write a letter to the telecom minister. Net-neutrality has to be understood from an Indian context and its mobile and internet situation. In the US, the debate is completely different and we can't compare the two and follow the same rules."
In a tweet on Tuesday, the minister for communications and information technology, Ravi Shankar Prasad, said, "Internet is one of the finest creations of the human mind. It belongs to the entire humanity and not to a few…Our government believes in using the internet for citizen empowerment. A committee has been set up in the department of relecom to look into net neutrality." The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India has issued a consultation paper on the regulatory framework for OTT services. It has asked for comments from stakeholders by the end of this month. There is no legislation at present for net-neutrality in India.
