Telecom giant Bharti Airtel, on Thursday, got down to some firefighting, saying its ‘Airtel Zero’ platform is focussed on offering customers free access to mobile apps and the debate that the product violates principles of net neutrality was “unrelated”.
Airtel Zero is an open marketing platform that allows customers to access a variety of mobile applications for free, with the data charges being paid by start-ups and large companies.
“First and most important point, Airtel Zero is ‘free’ for all our consumers and open to all marketers. Yes, open to all — big or small,” Bharti Airtel director Consumer Business Srini Gopalan told PTI .
He added that the company was seeing a “big and somewhat unrelated debate on net neutrality” with regard to the product.
“While opinions from critics of the product are very welcome, it’s pertinent that we set the record straight. Since we announced Airtel Zero on April 6, over 150 start-ups — with a majority being small start-ups — have contacted to enquire about the product,” he said.
Mr. Gopalan said the initiative would provide start-ups an “equal opportunity” to run with the “big boys” as their marketing costs would be reduced by almost three quarters.
He said the debate over the past few days indicated that a large number of people were still not clear on what net neutrality meant.
“This gives an opportunity to the so-called experts to make various as well as baseless arguments. While their point of view is important, we should have a more informed and nuanced debate without painting a picture that is based on rhetoric rather than reason,” he said.
Advocating the Airtel Zero platform, Mr. Gopalan said this will help drive Internet adoption through free usage and also make companies, app developers an equal partner in the process.
The principle of the net neutrality concept implies that equal treatment is given to all Internet traffic and prioritisation based on payment is seen as discrimination against others.
Over the last few months, operators like Reliance Communications and Uninor have tied up with players like Facebook, WhatsApp and Wikipedia to offer free usage to consumers.
