Facebook launched free mobile Internet earlier this year in February through Internet.org, but it seems that India’s regulators are rather cautious about the entire exercise. It has been reliably reported that the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India has asked Reliance Communications, which happens to be Facebook’s only operator partner in the world’s largest democracy, to hit the brakes on the Internet.org project.
It seems that the regulatory body is currently debating as to whether telecom operators should be given the permission to price their services differently by basing it on content. The service still remains accessible to subscribers as of Wednesday morning, although Reliance did receive a notice a fortnight back.
A Facebook spokesperson shared, “We are committed to Free Basics [the service provided by Internet.org] and to working with Reliance and the relevant authorities to help people in India get connected.” There was no word on the amount of time that the regulatory body had given Reliance in order to put the brakes on the free internet service offer. Do you think this is a good thing, or a bad thing? Of course, at the end of the day, giving free Internet to those living in rural areas by companies like Facebook also has another objective – to gain even more users in their user base. After all, there is no such thing as a free lunch in this world.