After facing heat over its Free Basic campaign in India, Facebook has now collaborated with Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) by purchasing bandwidth for Rs 10 crore in 125 rural areas for three years to break connectivity barriers with an aim to bridge the digital divide in India. At present, Facebook is testing the Express…
A partnership between Google and Indian Railways will see high-speed Wi-Fi deployed at 400 railway stations across the country, making this the largest public Wi-Fi project in India. While the first 100 stations are already preparing to go online before the end of 2016, why were railway stations chosen as hubs for digital expansion and…
All 5,631 gram panchayats in the State are expected to be connected with high-speed optical fibre cables by March this year as the project, taken up by Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd. (BSNL) under Digital India initiative, is nearing completion. Already, optical fibre connectivity had been laid in 2,260 gram panchayats (GPs) providing a bandwidth speed…
One of the primary agendas of the liberalization which began in 1991 was to improve competitiveness and reduce the transaction costs which largely restricted India’s trade with the rest of the world. But a quarter century after economic reforms were initiated, this Coasean problem of transaction costs remains more relevant than ever. The World Bank’s…
Facebook’s battle with Indian regulators is turning into a public he said, she said debate as the two sides continue to fight over Facebook’s Free Basics app, the social network’s effort to bring free Internet services — including Facebook — to emerging markets. A new letter published online Tuesday by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of…
Citizen and media censure of Free Basics, Facebook’s subsidised internet platform, has been one of the more heartening developments in the country over the past few weeks. There seems to be a fairly universal view that net neutrality, which forms the basis for opposing Free Basics in its present form, is relevant for internet users…
India’s telecom regulator has strongly criticised Facebook over its campaign to drum up support for its Free Basics internet plan in India. The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) said a poll prompting people to support the plan was “crudely majoritarian and orchestrated”. It had earlier asked the mobile network that partnered with Facebook to…
Facebook has rubbed India’s telecom regulator up the wrong way in its quest to provide free Internet. The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India in a letter published on Tuesday accused the social media company of turning a public debate on Net neutrality “into a crudely majoritarian and orchestrated opinion poll.” The TRAI in December began…