The fear that they will start increasing prices once they get bigger is misplaced because there is so much competition and entry is so easy that there can never be a monopoly. It throws out the baby with the bath water. That this order should come when the government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi has vowed to "free" India from the social and economic chains of the past, shows that this government needs to put on its "thinking" cap. More practically, there is money at the bottom of the pyramid. Like Facebook or Google, they make their money by selling the data they gather from the netizens — demographics and preferences — to market analysts and sometimes to governments; they leverage their eyeball score to increase advertising revenue and get additional private or public equity funding. To access content on Flipkart, Snapdeal, Amazon, Uber or Myntra there is no additional charge other than the Internet access cost. The Trai order kills innovation in developing socially relevant content for the poor because there is no way now of getting the content to them. Sorry, says the Trai order. But it ignores the need to grow this market to include 700 million Indians who are too poor to access data services other than phone calls and SMS.By ruling against Facebook’s Free Basics type of innovation, which offers, hitherto undreamed of, free but limited access to data services, Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) has regressed to a version of "ersatz Nehruvian socialism", which gave a dominant role to government control over the economy, creating a thin crust of elite Indians but doing little for the poor.So why does National Association of Software and Services Companies, an Indian IT lobbyist, support the Trai order Because it is in the interest of the software developers and content providers they represent to try and hang-on to the freebie they have — the roving eyeballs of netizens for which they pay nothing. A sad comment on the state of consumer protection in India.

This is the money they burn to offer fantastic discounts and out-compete brick and mortar pop and mom stores. So are these companies just plain generous No. Consumer benefit has been sacrificed yet again for ideology. Consider a large Indian company which may want to subsidise a telecom service provider (TSP) for providing free access to educational sites targeted at helping poor or dalit kids crack the JIIT exam. They enrich app developers by buying an app off the Net. Even today Indian cars remain a rich person’s trophy because of the high cost of owning and using one relative to average income. This is their Brahmastra to clinch the argument for "Net Neutrality".Remember the car you used to drive in the 1970s Most don’t, because it was an expensive, exclusive asset owned only by the rich. Indian activists are fond of using the United States as an exemplar of non-discriminatory pricing access. Whilst banning price "discrimination" for content, it also effectively disallows "positive discrimination" or "affirmative action" for access to socially responsible content. Or do they fear that international players with deep pockets may get there first and are using the garb of "Net Neutrality" as a fig leaf for self-preservation Do existing Indian players, TSPs want to keep Facebook out so they can do the same once they become big enough All IT start-ups attract customers by subsidising prices. Take Uber, Flipkart or any other. The US is under no compulsion to abandon "Net Neutrality", an ideology which sounds noble. In the chainsaw chain breaker spinner US, the poverty level income is $2,000 per capita per month. Data access costs $10 or one-third of a poor woman’s income. This is unsurprising. But they overlook the difference in context. Ironically, the Trai order of February 8, 2016, is driven by a similar vision — preserving notional equity and freedom within a small bubble of 250 million well-off, "Internet connected" Indians owning smartphones. TSPs, represented by Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI), buy expensive spectrum from the government, install and maintain the telecom network to link-in netizens and ensure that the number of eyeballs grows.Similarly, it bars a poor, pregnant woman, say on the outskirts of Patna, from availing free access to check the cost of having her baby in a decent hospital in Mumbai, where her husband works. In Africa, Net subscriptions of the poor are subsidised by foreign donors. For India, Trai’s ideology of "Net Neutrality" means the economic exclusion of 700 million poor people.

Activists, platform managers, content and app developers are being short sighted in ignoring the role of "free access" in getting them there. Shunning innovation in the pricing of access to the Net, Trai has decided to protect the existing ecosystem which privileges platform managers, content and app developers by giving them unpaid access to 250 million netizens. The cost of Internet access is not an economic barrier in the United States. Free Basics is driven by commerce. In India, the poverty level income is $30 per capita per month. Never mind that the telecom industry, the only success story of privatisation and reform, has grown from being yesterday’s "start-up" to today’s business biggie.It’s not only about Free Basics. Today it is Facebook subsidising access, tomorrow it could be a Tata CSR project. Can an "innovation" friendly eco-system really be sliced and diced, such that it is a "free market" for start-ups but a stiflingly regulated environment once they realise their dreams and become a business biggie, like Facebook There is a symbiotic relationship between TSPs, content providers and app developers. Free access has to be paid for by someone. For most netizens, the US is the mother lode of innovation, which it certainly has been.Trai’s decision is perverse and here’s why.Ironically, whilst making it easy to do business for "start-ups," we are killing commercial innovation by business biggies. Data access costs just 5 per cent of income or $100. You must pay the TSP to access the Net. The Trai order disallows this effort. If the content available is attractive, netizens spend more time surfing, thereby boosting TSP revenues.The writer is adviser, Observer Research Foundation. It is the principle of killing innovation that’s the real concern. Only 10 per cent of the 230 million Indian households own a car.It is hypocritical to simultaneously support free content-unhindered by state control whilst arguing against "affirmative action" for providing free access to the poor to socially relevant content, developed just for them.

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