After India, Facebook Free Basics Now Blocked In Egypt

The deadline for comments on the paper was ending today.

As per SavetheInternet forum, the net neutrality principle says that Internet service providers should not block or discriminate against any applications or content that rides over their networks. Egyptian officials haven’t said why they halted the program, but critics in India say it violates net neutrality.

India’s telecom regulator has received over 14 lakh responses in support of Facebook’s contentious Free Basics platform, but virtually all were redundant for formulating a policy as the regulator had sought views on the principle of differential pricing for data services, not the Free Basics initiative per se. “We have told one of the operators who had submitted its tariff plans and had asked the operator to put this particular product (Free Basics) in abayence… that operator has given us in writing that they have put their commercial launch of the product in abeyance”, Sharma said. Sharma said although these comments are also in a template form but the template answers all the questions with minor variations so there is no need to write back to them.

Out of the 37 countries questioning the rationality of the service, India has been the most vocal. Only 252 million of India’s 1.3 billion people have Internet access, making it a growth market for firms including Google and Facebook.

The group of executives in its letter said that differential pricing for access to Internet would lead to just a few players such as Facebook with the Free Basic platform playing the role of gatekeepers.

Respondents according to Sharma should in their response strive to address the four specific questions raised regarding differential pricing.

A Facebook spokesman said the aim of the Free Basics initiative was to give people a taste of what the internet can offer.

TRAI has asked Facebook and its India telecom partner Reliance Communications Ltd to put on hold the launch of the Free Basics service till the final rules are in place.

“Instead of recognizing the fact that Free Basics is opening up the whole internet, [critics] continue to claim – falsely – that this will make the internet more like a walled garden”, said Zuckerberg in a published opinion piece.