What is Free Basics

Free Basics in India

With the economically advanced market getting saturated, the focus of all the players in the mobile and the internet world is moving towards those people/ areas/ countries who do not have access to internet. The size of
this market is estimated at around 3 billion people. The people in these markets use very little data services
because they cannot afford it or the area they live in does not provide better data services. This market is
found in developing countries or under developed countries that are found in Latin America, Asia and Africa.

On 18 May 2010, Facebook launched “Facebook Zero” in these countries. Facebook Zero offered free access to a text-only version of Facebook for people who usually paid very less for data and who had feature phones (mobile phones that can access Internet, store and play music but don't have the advanced functionality of a smartphone).

With an improvement in mobile technology, on 20 August 2013 Facebook launched Internet.org along with - Ericsson
- MediaTek
- Samsung
- Opera Software
- Qualcomm
- Nokia

Internet.org was an upgrade of Facebook Zero. Free Basics was the new name given to Internet.org in September 2015.

Free Basics is a platform that allows mobile users to access the internet to enjoy/ use Facebook and certain local websites/ services, that are approved by Facebook. Since, Free Basics is targeted at under-privileged people, Facebook is positioning it as a "philanthropic" offering to get support from the local Governments.

Free Basics has a “lightweight experience” of the internet. What this means is that the services that are available on Free Basics are not data intensive. They do not have videos, high-resolution images, client-side or browser-side caching nor file and audio transfer services. The service cannot use HTTPS and java scripts. This is to ensure that very little bandwidth is used so as to reduce data charges to the bare minimum.

Customers will be charged if they

- Access Free Basics from a CDMA Mobile
- Access Free Basics through Dongle
- Click on links that go to a website outside the Free Basics hosted sites
- Click on images or videos

The customers can download Free Basic from the Free Basic website (free) or Google Play Store (downloading charges are applicable).

In countries where Facebook wants to offer Free Basics, it has tied up with the local mobile service providers to not charge for the data used on the Free basics platform. In other words, the data on this platform should be FREE to the users. Since the data is light, this would result in a small loss for the Mobile Service Provider.

According to Facebook, this would be like an "investment" for the MSP because Free basics is a tool to "introduce" users to the Internet. Once the users get a taste of the internet, they would want more and would change their mobile package to one where they would be willing to pay more for internet usage. Going by Facebook's past experience, more than 50% of Free Basics users have upgraded their package within one month of using Free Basics.

Countries in which Facebook is available -

Free Basics is available in 37 countries with the following mobile operators:

- Africa - Angola [Movicel], Benin [MTN], Congo [Airtel, Tigo], Gabon [Airtel], Ghana [Airtel], Guinea [Cellcom], Guinea-Bissau [MTN], Kenya [Airtel], Liberia [Cellcom], Malawi [Airtel, TNM], Mauritania [Mauritel], Mozambique [Mcel], Niger [Airtel], Rwanda [Airtel], Senegal [Tigo], Seychelles [Airtel], South Africa [Cell C], Tanzania [Tigo], Zambia [Airtel]

- Asia Pacific - Bangladesh [Grameenphone, Robi], Cambodia [Smart Axiata], Indonesia [Indosat], Iraq [Korek], Maldives [Ooredoo], Mongolia [G-Mobile, Mobicom, Skytel], Pakistan [Telenor, Zong], Philippines [Globe, Smart], Thailand [DTAC, TrueMove], Timor-Leste [Telkomcel], Vanuatu [Telecom]

- Latin America- Bolivia [Viva], Colombia [Tigo], Guatemala [Tigo], Mexico [Virgin], Panama [Digicel], Peru [Entel]

In India, Facebook has tied up with the Mobile Service Provider, Reliance Communications Ltd. which belongs to the Anil Dhirubhai Ambani group.

Services offered in Free Basics

In each country locally approved websites are encouraged and allowed to be a part of the Free Basics platform. Facebook controls which website will be a part of Free Basics. People/ companies that are interested to put up their website on the Free Basics platform should submit their application on the Free Basic website.

Facebook has certain “Participation Guidelines”. Applications that fulfill these participation guidelines and at the discretion of Facebook, will be made available on the Free Basics app. Apart from the participation guidelines, there are the additional guidelines that dictate the relation between Facebook and the participating websites with respect to data.

The Free Basic app in India offers the following websites free to it’s subscribers:

- Social Networking - Facebook, Facebook Messenger
- Government - AP Speaks
- Entertainment - Hungama, Astrology
- Career - Jagran Josh
- Health - Malaria No More, Facts for Life [Unicef], Social Blood, Baby Center and MAMA
- Information - Reuters Market Lite, Aaj Tak, AccuWeather, Amar Ujala, BBC News, IBN Live, Daily Bhaskar, Dictionary.com, Jaagran, Maalai Malar, Maharastra Times, Translator, wikiHow, Wikipedia, Basics of Internet
- Shopping - OLX
- Jobs - BabaJob
- Search - Bing Search
- Sports - ESPN Cricinfo
- Women Empowerment - Nike Foundation [Girl Effect], UN Women [iLearn]

Similar offerings:

Facebook is not the only player in this “philanthropic” activity. The other players who are aiming to reach these approximate 3 bn under-privileged people are:

- Wikipedia Zero - Inspired by Facebook Zero, the Wikimedia Foundation has created Wikipedia Zero to provide Wikipedia without data-usage cost on mobile phones.

- Google - Facebook’s biggest competitor, has started Google Free Zone to ensure it stays ahead of Facebook. Google has also tied up with mobile service providers to allow users to access Google products like Google Search, Gmail, and Google+. To use these products, users don't even need a data plan on their device. Google Free Zone is available in South Africa, Sri Lanka, Philippines, Thailand and Kenya. It is available in India as Airtel Zero.

- The Alliance for Affordable Internet (abbreviated A4AI) - is an initiative to make the Internet more affordable to people around the world. It was launched in October, 2013. Google was one of the founding members along with the World Wide Web Foundation. Other members are the Omidyar Network, the Department for International Development, United States Agency for International Development, Facebook, Cisco, Intel, Microsoft, UN Women and many others from the public, private and civil society sectors. It helps governments in Africa, Asia and Latin America on policies and regulations.

Apart from trying to make internet affordable and reachable to all, these companies/ initiatives are also looking at improving the communication hardware by
- collaborating with communication service providers to put new satellites in Earth's orbit over the equator
- helium balloons with communications satellites
- drones

The controversy:

Free Basics and Google Free Zone have come under criticism, all over the World, because of the following reasons:
1. Facebook is offering Free Basics "free" as a philanthropic imitative. There will be no advertisements and hence no revenue to Facebook. But, critics say that there is nothing free because
- Facebook does not say that there will be no ads in the future.
- Facebook has pressure from the Wall Street to keep showing increase in its user base. This program allows it to add users at the expense of its competitors who’s apps are now unfairly blocked by Face Book on Free Basics.
- Facebook has a proxy on the website of the services that are part of Free Basics. They have full control and can do what they want with the member data of all the services that are available on this platform. A company like Facebook that earns a lot of money by selling member data is bound to do the same on the Free Basics platform also.
- the data transfer cost is borne by the mobile service provider, who in turn can monetize it by tracking, collecting and selling the user data and activities on its network.
- When the mobile user upgrade their mobile pack after a month, then they would want the full Facebook, which in turn would mean more Facebook users. This would also ensure that the mobile service provider also profits.

2. Facebook wants to control the content that would be available through their platform. The internet is a free space where there are no restrictions for entry or exit. When platforms like Free Basics decide to choose which websites will be a part of their platform that is receiving a preferential treatment, then they go against the principle of net neutrality where every one is treated equal. This was the same way the Britishers introduced Tea in India in the early 1900's. Now a majority of Indian population is addicted to Tea.

3. Having a differential pricing for some select websites would give an advantage to the services that are offered on Free Basics against their competitors.

4. The services are not very "basic" as the name suggests and should therefore not get a preferential treatment. People can live without the services offered on Free Basics.

Problem in India

This criticism is more in India and India's telecom regulator, TRAI, had to step in and ask Reliance Communications to put Free basics on hold. TRAI is still in the process of framing the regulations and has asked four questions to the public to help them arrive at a proper regulation for this differential pricing problem. The four questions are:

1. Should differential pricing be allowed?
2. If differential pricing is allowed, then how should it be regulated?
3. Suggestions for making Internet free for everyone?
4. Advantages/ disadvantages?

Instead of giving solutions/ answers to these questions, Facebook spent about 100 crores to create a massive
marketing campaign that included
- tents in several places across the country where people were taught about Free Basics
- two full newspaper page justifications about their philanthropic work and that by not allowing Free Basics, the Government of India is being anti poor
- mobilising support on Facebook by asking it's users (irrespective of country) to accept a notification which says that without their support digital equality will not be possible in India. They managed to get a support of many users, some not from India.

Other People/ companies have sent in their answers, but TRAI is yet to announce the regulation. Till then Free Basics and Airtel Zero (Google Free Zone) are put on hold.

Conclusion

Net Neutrality means that everything and everybody should be treated equally on the Internet. This means
- anyone can put up content on the Internet anytime
- anyone can access the content on the Internet

But, net neutrality according to Free Basics and Google Free Zone is that everybody should have access to the Internet. These are two different things.

What Facebook and Google are doing with these initiatives is basically trying to expand their user base. An increased user base means more revenues and therefore more profit. It would also mean a better standing on the stock market.

So, even if they offer something free, it would be only for a limited time. After this time is over, these companies will get their investment and more back from the same "poor" users. Eventually, every user will have to pay.

Even local governments should understand that there is nothing "philanthropic" about these initiatives. Most of the developed countries that have a telecom policy in place have rejected differential pricing. When TRAI comes out with it's policy, it should take all this into consideration.

What is Free Basics