India: Temporary Ban On Facebook's Free Internet Service

India Temporarily Bans Facebook's Controversial Free Internet Service

Jacob Kastrenakes | December 23, 2015

Facebook's plan to bring limited, free internet access to India has hit a hurdle: a regulator in the country wants it blocked. India's telecom regulator has asked that the service be disabled while investigating whether it poses a threat to net neutrality. In particular, the regulator is concerned about whether phone carriers should be allowed to charge different prices for different content; in this case, free for certain websites — like Facebook — and the cost of data for almost everything else. "Unless that question is answered, it will not be appropriate for us to continue to make that happen," an unnamed government official told The Times of India, which first reported the news.

A woman in Mumbai, India, watches a movie on a smartphone as companies compete for a share of the fast-growing Internet market. Source: http://phys.org/news/2015-12-facebook-india-row-internet-access.html

<more at http://www.theverge.com/2015/12/23/10657916/free-basics-internet-org-service-temporary-ban-india; related link: http://www.livemint.com/Industry/wJ5vOT1OgaNmQ7h58VTfjI/Trai-reminds-RCom-to-submit-Free-Basics-terms-and-conditio.html (Trai reminds R-Com to submit Free Basics’ terms and conditions. The reminder comes three weeks after the regulator asked R-Com to put the scheme on hold and submit details before a commercial launch. December 23, 2015) and http://www.theverge.com/2015/2/13/8024993/facebook-internet-org-net-neutrality (Facebook's march to global domination is trampling over net neutrality. Facebook is gobbling up the world, one internet connection at a time. February 13, 2015)>