The Telecommunications Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has issued regulations [pdf] that prohibit “Discriminatory Tariffs for Data Services”.

As Jerri Ann Henry of Protect Internet Freedom writes in an article in India’s “Daily News and Analysis” (“dna”), the outcome of a fight between Google and Facebook is leaving India’s poor without access to any part of the world wide web: “Six of the twelve leading anti zero-rating activists have received funding from a Facebook competitor – Google – either directly to them or through the organisations they represent.”

It is worth noting that so-called “discriminatory” plans were commonly available in North America to help get people online in the early days of mobile broadband.

For example:

• In 2011, WIND Mobile bundled its WINDworld service into many of its dataplans, giving users access to Facebook Zero, news, weather updates & free ringtones;
• In 2013, Eastlink offered a Social add-on that offered unlimited Facebook, Twitter and BBM for a flat $10 monthly fee;
• In 2014, in the US, Sprint offered a $12 add-on to provide unlimited access to a customer’s choice of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or Pinterest, or for $22, the customer could have all 4;
• The Mobilicity website still shows a $5 Light Data plan, giving unlimited access to Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, Google+, and LinkedIn, Google Talk, Yahoo Messenger, ICQ. Includes: Gmail, Hotmail and MS Exchange.

I have written about these kinds of plans in the past, such as last year’s “Zero is better than nothing” that cautioned “Regulators need to be careful imposing restrictions on the evolution of business models.” In “Tiger ice cream and the digital economy“, I wrote “The digital economy framework shouldn’t block service innovation and differentiation.”

In the past, all of Canada’s wireless carriers have offered variants of these kinds of plans, providing customers with an incentive to try using their devices for more than just phone calls. In the US, Sprint’s Virgin Mobile brand offered a $12 flat rate add-on to give unlimited access to the customer’s choice of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or Pinterest, or for $10 more, the customer could have all 4.

These kinds of programs whet the appetite of consumers to try to get more from their devices and their mobile services. According to Internet.org, Free Basics saw half its users progress from the free sample service to begin subscribing to a paid full internet service:

data from this program shows that it works to open up the full internet to people who use Free Basics. 50% of people who use Free Basics are paying for data – and access the internet outside of free basic services – within 30 days of coming online for the first time.

Yet, India has banned the practice, with a regulation that simply states “No service provider shall enter into any arrangement, agreement or contract, by whatever name called, with any person, natural or legal, that has the effect of discriminatory tariffs for data services being offered or charged to the consumer on the basis of content”.

Once again, we see activists claiming to be acting in the consumer interest, reducing consumer choice. In some economies, this means monthly bills go up for some and go down for no one. In India, it means that the poor have access to no service, rather than having a choice of trying out some connectivity.

Ken Engelhart summarized this as:

As Jerri Ann Henry writes:

Those caterwauling the loudest that offering anything less than full access to the Internet is “poor Internet for poor people” are being highly disingenuous. After all, ideological purity is easy when it costs you nothing. It’s akin to a debate among the well fed about whether the starving should be given soup that isn’t organically sourced.

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A new study reports that we need to look at more than just the question of having internet access; we need to look at how people are connected.

The US study found that many low- and moderate- income families rely on mobile-only access (23%) and more than half (52%) of those low- and moderate- income families with home Internet access say it is too slow. A quarter (26%) say too many people share the same computer, and one fifth (20%) say their Internet was cut off in the last year due to lack of payment.

The study, “Opportunity for All? Technology and Learning in Low-Income Families” was released by the Joan Ganz Cooney Center, an independent research and innovation lab that focuses on the challenges of educating children in a rapidly changing media landscape.

Study co-author Vikki Katz, an associate professor of communication at Rutgers University, said “It’s no longer a simple question of whether or not families are connected to the Internet, but rather how they are connected, and the implications of being under-connected for children’s access to educational opportunities and parents’ ability to apply for jobs or resources.”

The study‘s key findings:

1. Most low- and moderate-income families have some form of Internet connection, but many are under-connected, with mobile-only access and inconsistent connectivity.
2. Families headed by Hispanic immigrants are less connected than other low- and moderate-income families.
3. The main reason some families do not have home computers or Internet access is because they cannot afford it, but discounted Internet programs are reaching very few.
4. Low- and moderate-income parents use the Internet for a broad range of purposes, but mobile-only families are less likely to do certain online activities.
5. Children from low- and moderate-income families use computers and the Internet for a variety of educational activities, but those without home access are less likely to go online to pursue their interests.
6. Parents feel largely positive about the Internet and digital technology, but many also have concerns.
7. Children and parents frequently learn with, and about, technology together, especially in families with the lowest incomes and where parents have less education.

As discussions continue on how how to improve broadband adoption (leading up to the CRTC’s review of basic telecom services), this report contributes another perspective. For example, some have suggested that many households that don’t have a traditional computer with internet connection configuration may be better served with mobile devices. This study found that mobile only households are 30 percentage points less likely to shop online (36% vs. 66% of those with home access), 25 percentage points less likely to use online banking or bill-paying (49% vs. 74%), 14 percentage points less likely to apply for jobs or services online (42% vs. 56%), and 12 percentage points less likely to get news or follow local events online (70% vs. 82%).

It isn’t just a matter of getting everyone on-line by connecting the “un-connected”; we need to look at the “under connected” as well.

I was led to an interesting opinion piece in the New York Times by Thomas Friedman after following a tweet from Norman Spector:

Much of the article consists of an interview with Wael Ghonim, the Google employee in Egypt whose Facebook page was credited with helping to launch the Tahrir Square demonstration leading to the fall of Hosni Mubarak’s government.

In December, Ghonim, who has since moved to Silicon Valley, posted a TED talk about what went wrong. It is worth watching and begins like this: “I once said, ‘If you want to liberate a society, all you need is the Internet.’ I was wrong.

I thought it would be important to capture Friedman’s highlight of Ghonim’s views on social media:

• “First, we don’t know how to deal with rumors. Rumors that confirm people’s biases are now believed and spread among millions of people.”
• Second, “We tend to only communicate with people that we agree with, and thanks to social media, we can mute, un-follow and block everybody else.”
• “Third, online discussions quickly descend into angry mobs. … It’s as if we forget that the people behind screens are actually real people and not just avatars.”
• “And fourth, it became really hard to change our opinions. Because of the speed and brevity of social media, we are forced to jump to conclusions and write sharp opinions in 140 characters about complex world affairs. And once we do that, it lives forever on the Internet.”
• Fifth, and most crucial, he said, “today, our social media experiences are designed in a way that favors broadcasting over engagements, posts over discussions, shallow comments over deep conversations. … It’s as if we agreed that we are here to talk at each other instead of talking with each other.”

The article is worth a full read and be sure to watch the TED talk. Do you agree with Ghonim’s conclusion?

Five years ago, I said, ‘If you want to liberate society, all you need is the Internet.’ Today I believe if we want to liberate society, we first need to liberate the Internet.

In the upcoming CRTC “Review of basic telecommunications services” hearing, most of the attention will be focused on the question of adding broadband to definition of “basic service”.

As I have written before, from the outset, the CRTC has framed its review from the perspective of geography, seeking to “gather information from the industry to better understand which telecommunications services are being offered across Canada and whether any areas in Canada are underserved or unserved.”

In seeking public comments on solutions, we continue to see the terminology of a geographic bias. “What action, if any, should the Commission take where Canadians do not have access…” and “What action, if any, should the Commission take in cases where its target speeds will not be achieved…”

Such approaches, a bizarre artifact of the earliest monopoly telephone era, have created a bias in government spending programs and regulatory cross-subsidies that see urban consumers, regardless of financial means, pay more for telecom services in order to subsidize rural users, regardless of financial need.

The Toronto Star writes “Anti-poverty advocates call for affordable Internet“. The article describes how ACORN, will be putting a human dimension before the Commission. [ACORN will be represented as part of a group called the Affordable Access Coalition, represented by PIAC.]

ACORN has released a study, “Internet for All: Internet Use and Accessibility for Low-Income Canadians” that calls for:

• $10/month product for high speed (15 megabits/second or equivalent to high speed in area);
• Families and individuals below the Low Income Measure as eligible to qualify;
• Subsidized computers for qualifying families and individuals.

As the Toronto Star article indicates, Rogers has a $10 high speed internet product available to the 58,000 households in Toronto Community Housing, and in cooperation with Compugen and Microsoft, the group offers a $150 computer.

I have been writing for too long that broadband affordability is not a geographic issue. Five years ago, I estimated that as many as 2 million households in Canada lacked a computer. Canada’s 3 biggest cities had more than 600,000 households with no computer.

When the CRTC examines the question of broadband as a basic service, it needs to ensure that any measures it takes recognize the question of urban affordability for low income households. It would be a mistake, and counterproductive, to increase the cost of service in urban centres to subsidize rural and remote regions without first considering affordability and means.