Facebook Bids Farewell To Free Basics In India

With a heavy heart, Facebook gives up on India in terms of its Free Basics campaign.

It is that time when Facebook Inc. is observing a moment of silence since the company has decided to put an end to the Free Basics Internet campaign in India. The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) recently, imposed a ban on the differential pricing mechanism preset in the region which means that no company operating in India can charge the data tariffs differently on the basis of the content. This will result in a ban on zero rated and free data services similar to the product offering by the tech giant.

A public debate has been taking place in the country regarding net neutrality and differential pricing. The network carriers came up with offerings where consumers making use of various genres of digital data were asked to pay different rates. This incorporated those data packages as well that could be offered free of cost such as Airtel Zero derived by the largest Internet carrier in India, Bharti Airtel as well as the Free Basics initiative.

Initially the service was known as the Internet.org, Free Basics initiative is a offering that enables the masses to get access to free Internet in the developing countries via the Free Basics app. The social media giant collaborated with various service providers to offer free apps and services that were limited to its own social media network. The company collaborated with Reliance Communications for the project.

The tech giant had to deal with a lot of criticism in the country since many critics complained that the company vouched to offer free and open experience which was not being delivered in most scenarios. They also claimed that the service was actually against the principles of net neutrality and the data regulators are not supposed to gate keep apps and services that are present on the web. The program was not offering access to the company’s competitors such as Twitter and Google. However, after an ongoing debate that took place between Facebook and net neutrality supporters, Reliance was ordered to put an end to this plan where the ruling will be revealed in the future.

Both the parties came up with campaigns so that they could acknowledge the regulators about their concerns. Facebook made use of the abundant emails it received in favor of the Free Basics Internet service by the masses. However, critics claimed that there was no credibility of these emails and it could merely be a spam. According to the activists against the cause claimed that the company wishes to gate keep the Internet so that they can improve its user base and in return generate more profitability in terms of its advertisement business.

Irrespective of the efforts made by the company, the purported philanthropic plans of the company through this venture have gone down the drain. The company has invested a huge amount in its operations for this venture since it wanted to establish a positive image of the service. All Facebook wanted was free access to the Internet which is now a dream.