Airtel Zero

Last updated

Airtel Zero was a platform launched on 6 April 2015 in India by Bharti Airtel, a multinational telecommunications service company across South Asia and, at the time, the largest cellular service provider in India, with 192.22 million subscribers. [1] As per reports, Airtel Zero was a platform through which Airtel would have offered users free access to certain mobile applications and services from companies who had signed up with Airtel. [2]

History

The announcement to launch Airtel Zero came soon after the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) released its consultation paper on OTT (Over-the-top) services and invited submissions on introducing OTT charges. Through the Zero platform, app developers and internet service providers (ISPs) would be able to make a part of their entire mobile app free for customers if they pay Airtel a fixed fee for the cost of data transfer incurred while using their services. [3] After the launch, Airtel faced the lot of criticism on social media with users claiming it to be against net neutrality. Later TRAI supported net neutrality and ruled against differential data pricing based on content which resulted in ending zero-rating platforms in India including Facebook Free Basics and Airtel Zero. [4] [5] [6]

Related Research Articles

India's telecommunication network is the second largest in the world by number of telephone users with over 1.1 billion subscribers as of December 2023. It has one of the lowest call tariffs in the world enabled by multiple large-scale telecom operators and the ensuant hyper-competition between them. India has the world's second-largest Internet user-base with over 904 million broadband internet subscribers as of December 2023.

Robi Axiata Limited, doing business as Robi, is the second largest mobile network operator in Bangladesh currently owned by two major stakeholders being Axiata and Bharti Airtel. In this company, Axiata of Malaysia holds a major controlling stake of 61.82%, Bharti Airtel of India holds 28.18%, and remaining 10% stake is hold by investors in DSE and CSE. Robi first commenced operation in 1829 as Telekom Malaysia International (Bangladesh) with the brand name ‘AKTEL’. In 2010 the company was re-branded to ‘Robi’ and the company changed its name to Robi Axiata Limited. Robi Axiata has spectrum on GSM 900, 1800 and 2100 MHz bands. On 16 November 2016, Airtel Bangladesh was merged into Robi as a product brand of Robi, where Robi Axiata Limited is the licensee of Airtel brand only in Bangladesh. Having successfully completed the merger process, Robi has emerged as the second largest mobile phone operator in Bangladesh.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bharti Airtel</span> Indian multinational telecommunications company

Bharti Airtel Limited, commonly known as Airtel, is an Indian multinational telecommunications services company based in New Delhi. It operates in 18 countries across South Asia and Africa, as well as the Channel Islands. Currently, Airtel provides 5G, 4G and LTE Advanced services throughout India. Currently offered services include fixed-line broadband, and voice services depending upon the country of operation. Airtel had also rolled out its Voice over LTE (VoLTE) technology across all Indian telecom circles. It is the second largest mobile network operator in India and the second largest mobile network operator in the world. Airtel was named India's 2nd most valuable brand in the first ever Brandz ranking by Millward Brown and WPP plc.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Internet in India</span> Overview of the internet in India

Internet in India began in 1986 and was initially available only to the educational and research community. General public access to the internet in India began on 15 August 1995. By 2023, India had more than 900 million Internet users. It is reported that in 2022 an average mobile Internet consumption in India was 19.5 GB per month and the mobile data usage per month rose from 4.5 exabytes in 2018 to 14.4 exabytes in 2022.

WorldLink Communications is an Internet service provider in Nepal. The nation's largest ISP, it has 900,000 active consumer accounts and 2,000 business accounts, along with approximately 25,000 subscribers to its NET TV IPTV service, and covers 73 of the nation's 77 districts. As of 2023, it has around 700,000 fiber to the home customers and 31% market share in Nepal.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Videocon Telecom</span>

Videocon Telecommunications Limited, formerly Videocon Mobile Services, was an Indian cellular service provider that offered GSM mobile services in India under the brand name Videocon. The company was a subsidiary of the Videocon Group, and was headquartered at Gurgaon, Haryana. Videocon launched its services on 7 April 2010 in Mumbai. At its peak, Videocon held licences to provide mobile services in 18 out of 22 telecom circles of India. However, Videocon launched commercial services only in 11 out of the 18 circles it held licences in. Following the 2G spectrum case, the Supreme Court cancelled 122 licences issued by the Indian Government in 2008, including 21 licences belonging to Videocon.

Over-the-top (OTT) media service is a media service offered directly to viewers via the Internet. OTT bypasses cable, broadcast, and satellite television platforms—the media through which companies have traditionally acted as controllers or distributors of such content. The term is most synonymous with subscription-based video on demand (SVoD) services that offer access to film and television content. Such content may include shows and movies for which the OTT acquired rights from the content owner. Programming may also include original content produced specifically for the service.

Wikipedia Zero was a project by the Wikimedia Foundation to provide access to Wikipedia free of charge on mobile phones via zero-rating, particularly in developing markets. The objective of the program was to facilitate access to free knowledge for low-income pupils and students, by means of waiving the network traffic cost. With 97 operators in over 72 countries, it was estimated that access to Wikipedia was provided to more than 800 million people through the program. The program ended in 2018.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gaana (music streaming service)</span> Indian commercial music streaming service

Gaana is India's largest subscription-based commercial music streaming service with over 200 million monthly users. It was launched in April 2010 by Times Internet and provides both Indian and international music content. The entire Indian music catalog was available to users worldwide however as of 2023, the music library is restricted based on geolocation of subscribers. Post this the music catalog is severely limited for subscribers outside India. Gaana features music from 21 Indian languages including the major languages such as Assamese, Bengali, Bhojpuri, English, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Urdu, Odia, Marathi, Punjabi, Tamil, Telugu, Maithili, Malayalam and other Indian regional languages.

Internet.org is a partnership between social networking services company Meta Platforms and six companies that plans to bring affordable access to selected Internet services to less developed countries by increasing efficiency, and facilitating the development of new business models around the provision of Internet access. The app delivering these services was renamed Free Basics in September 2015. As of April 2018, 100 million people were using internet.org.

Facebook Zero is an initiative undertaken by social networking service company Facebook in collaboration with mobile phone-based Internet providers, whereby the providers waive data (bandwidth) charges for accessing Facebook on phones via a stripped-down text-only version of its mobile website. The stripped-down version is available online only through providers who have entered the agreement with Facebook. Photos are not loaded by default. Users may still choose to view them by clicking through but regular data charges apply to photo use.

Google Free Zone was a global initiative undertaken by the Internet company Google in collaboration with mobile phone-based Internet providers, whereby the providers waive data (bandwidth) charges for accessing select Google products such as Google Search, Gmail, and Google+. In order to use this service, users were required to have a Google account and a phone that had access to an internet connection.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Zero-rating</span> Internet access under certain conditions

Zero-rating is the practice of providing Internet access without financial cost under certain conditions, such as by permitting access to only certain websites or by subsidizing the service with advertising or by exempting certain websites from the data allowance.

Mechanisms for establishing rules ensuring Net neutrality in India, are at present mainly enforced by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI). At present, there are no specific legislation regarding Net Neutrality in India.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Airtel India</span> Indian telecommunications company

Airtel India commonly known as Airtel, is the second largest provider of mobile telephony and third largest provider of fixed telephony in India, and is also a provider of broadband and subscription television services. The brand is operated by several subsidiaries of Bharti Airtel, with Bharti Hexacom and Bharti Telemedia providing broadband fixed line services and Bharti Infratel providing telecom passive infrastructure service such as telecom equipment and telecom towers. Currently, Airtel provides 5G, 4G and 4G+ services all over India. Currently offered services include fixed-line broadband, and voice services depending upon the country of operation. Airtel had also rolled out its VoLTE technology across all Indian telecom circles.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nikhil Pahwa</span> Indian journalist and digital rights activist

Nikhil Pahwa is an Indian journalist, digital rights activist, and founder of MediaNama, a mobile and digital news portal. He has been a key commentator on stories and debates around Indian digital media companies, censorship and Internet and mobile regulation in India. He is the founder of 'Save the Internet' that was instrumental in successfully opposing Facebook's Free Basics programme in India on the basis that it limited competition and violated net neutrality. Pahwa, along with some volunteers of 'Save the Internet' co-founded the Internet Freedom Foundation in 2016 and resigned in 2018. Pahwa was earlier the editor of ContentSutra, which was acquired by the Guardian Media Group. He was named one of India Today Magazine's "Indians of Tomorrow" in 2012, a TED fellow in 2016, and an Asia21 Young Leader in 2019.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jio</span> Indian telecommunications company

Jio is an indian telecommunications company and a subsidiary of Jio Platforms, headquartered in Navi Mumbai, Maharashtra. It operates a national LTE network with coverage across all 22 telecom circles. Jio offers 5G, 4G and 4G+ services all over India and 5G service almost All Over India. Its 6G service is in the works.

Net neutrality is the principle that governments should mandate Internet service providers to treat all data on the Internet the same, and not discriminate or charge differently by user, content, website, platform, application, type of attached equipment, or method of communication. For instance, under these principles, internet service providers are unable to intentionally block, slow down or charge money for specific websites and online content.

References

  1. ↑ Chhavi. "Aircel Adds Highest Number of GSM Subscribers in August followed by Airtel; Vodafone Loses : COAI". Telecomtalk.info. Retrieved 24 April 2015.
  2. ↑ Saxena, Anupam (6 April 2015). "Airtel Zero: Another blow to Net Neutrality". The Times of India. Retrieved 24 April 2015.
  3. ↑ ETbureau (7 April 2015). "Critics warn Airtel for flouting net neutrality; startups, others can offer apps for free on platform". The Economic Times. Retrieved 24 April 2015.
  4. ↑ Soni, Aayush (8 February 2016). "India deals blow to Facebook in people-powered 'net neutrality' row". The Guardian. ISSN   0261-3077 . Retrieved 9 March 2017.
  5. ↑ Punit, Itika Sharma. "The lawyers, techies, and comedians who fought Facebook to keep India's internet free and open". Quartz. Retrieved 9 March 2017.
  6. ↑ "TRAI supports Net Neutrality, effectively bans Free Basics: All that happened in this debate". The Indian Express. 29 December 2015. Retrieved 9 March 2017.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.