Ncell App Sansar and Net Neutrality
Nootan Ghimire
---------------------
1. What is Net Neutrality?
It is a concept in which we say that All Packets in any network should be treated equally by an ISP. That is, no ISP should favor an individual entity by transferring it for free (when others are charged heavily), or giving it the possibility of high speed.
2. So, My ISP making access to servers in Nepal fast a violation?
Not exactly, because it treats every packets that bounces in your country to be fair and equal, because no any additional fees are required since your data do not leave your country. i.e., it's like your home network could be faster if you have that type of infrastructure - and is independent of the connections you make to the outer world. Since servers (cache-servers) of Google, and others reside inside our country, you are able to stream youube videos fast (remember you have to refresh many times in order to hit the right server).
Clarification: I could be wrong in the facts mentioned above, in that case: yes, it's against net neutrality too.
3. Why is Ncell against it then? What has it done?
About a year ago, Ncell introduced onlinekhabar.com and setopati.com free access in this network. I am not sure if that's still the case (I can no longer access ncellsansar.com so I guess they discontinued it), but if it is: It does the following things:
a. Suppose you are a new entrepreneur and you open new News Portal. You are so back in competition now, not because you are new, but because hey, onlinekhabar and setopati are free, who gives a shit to others?
b. You might have to approach other or same ISPs and offer them money perhaps, so that access to your content is free. The circle continues. ISP gets richer and richer.
c. Not only existing ISPs get richer, the chance that new ISP will invest is lessened, because hey ISP1 is giving all things for free. If I switch to new ISP2, I'll have to pay for everything. So, ISP2 should implicitly make the existing free services free. Since an ISP has to survive, you'll get loads of bills to pay for other data you use.
d. Gist: It's creating a seriously unhealthy competition. It's confusing. It's tangling. It's playing with you. Showing you attractive offers at first and pulling more money at the end.
4. If onlinekhabar and setopati (or whatever) is not free nowadays, then why blame Ncell now - I am sure it won't make mistakes again?
I would wish. But It has, again made a mistake. It recently launched an App Store in which developers can put their Apps. And the tagline is, "If you are on Ncell's network, you can download apps hosted in their store - with no data charges". There are other app stores in Nepal too (and newer can arrive, given the scenario with Google Play), but just like making those news sites free hindered the growth of other news site, it would hinder the growth of other store. It will also create an unhealthy competition.
You might get to download your cool app for free, but you then have to restrict your option to chose a internet service provider based on something so silly. ISPs should compete by making their services better and fast - not by treating data unequal.
Save Net Neutrality!
-----------------
Do you agree that it violates Net Neutrality? Or Have Different Thoughts? Please Reply and Share your thoughts with the community!
Sagar Chhetri
Mr. Sagar Chhetri
RMS - Gulf Warehousing Company
www.sagarkshetri.com.np
--
Mailing List Guidelines: http://wiki.fossnepal.org/index.php?title=Mailing_List_Guidelines
Community website: http://www.fossnepal.org/
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "FOSS Nepal" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to foss-nepal+...@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to foss-...@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Aatish Neupane
As far as ISPs don't prioritize between local websites, I think Net Neutrality shouldn't be a problem. If I were to create a Twitter like service to compete with it, then I would have a problem because Ncell provides Twitter access for free.
+1 for raising this issue.