India wants stable internet, not Facebook’s Free Basics

If Mark Zuckerberg hopes to deliver on his vision of bringing the internet to the four billion people who lack it, the Facebook chief will first need to make his plan more appealing to such salesmen as Shoaib Khan.

Khan's perfume and cellphone shop in one of Mumbai's many slums recently displayed a large blue banner advertising Zuckerberg's project, called Internet.org, in the back. Another sign for the free package of internet services - offered in India through the cellphone carrier Reliance Communications - was posted prominently in front.

But when a New York Times reporter asked Khan about his experience with Internet.org, he had no idea what it was. After the program was explained to him, he quickly dismissed it.

''The Reliance connection is very patchy,'' said Khan, shaking his head. ''I would really have to sell the customer on it.''

Facebook's rocky experience since it brought Internet.org to India in February shows that good intentions and technological savvy are not enough to achieve a noble goal like universal internet access.

The skepticism of phone sellers such as Khan and the weaknesses of Facebook's Indian partner are just two of the problems that have bedevilled Zuckerberg's project so far.

Internet.org's free services - which include news articles, health and job information, and a text-only version of Facebook - are deliberately stripped down to minimize data usage and the cost to the phone company.

Facebook says the primary goal is to show people what the internet is all about. But many Indians want more and complain that, contrary to its altruistic claims, the project is simply a way to get them onto Facebook and sign up for paid plans from Reliance.

Internet activists have also attacked Facebook for cherry-picking partners to include in its walled garden rather than simply offering a small amount of free access to the whole internet. Their concerns have struck a chord with the Indian government, which is considering new rules that would govern such free services.

Zuckerberg declined several requests to discuss Internet.org. But he remains passionate about his crusade. ''Internet access needs to be treated as an important enabler of human rights and human potential,'' he told the United Nations last month.

The Internet.org suite, rebranded last month as Free Basics, is now in 25 countries, from Indonesia to Panama. Facebook is investing heavily in other parts of the project, including experiments to deliver cheap Wi-Fi to remote villages and to beam internet service from high-flying drones.

Zuckerberg is also determined to win over the Indian public. Last month, he hosted a live-streamed chat with India's Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, from Facebook's Silicon Valley headquarters. And this week, Zuckerberg will be in New Delhi, where he will take questions from some of Facebook's 130 million Indian users.

The magnitude of the task ahead was apparent in Dharavi, home to as many as 1 million of Mumbai's poor.

Several billboards advertised Freenet, Reliance's version of Internet.org. But in the neighborhood's narrow alleys, where rivulets of raw sewage competed with sandaled feet, there was little evidence that anyone had noticed Internet.org.

A conversation with a dozen cellphone users at a tea shop uncovered no one who had heard of Freenet or Internet.org but plenty of complaints about Reliance's sluggish data network and poor customer service compared to the market leaders, Airtel and Vodafone.

Chris Daniels, the Facebook executive who leads Internet.org, said the company is primarily trying to reach people who are new to the internet.

In an interview this month, Daniels said about 1 million people had been introduced to the internet in India because of the program. After their first 30 days online, he said, about 40 per cent of them became paying data customers, 5 per cent stuck with only free services, and the rest left.

''This is a program that is working to bring people online, and working incredibly well,'' Daniels said. ''Connectivity is something that improves people's lives.''

Facebook's approach has run into a buzz-saw of criticism from Internet advocates here, who see it as an attempt by the world's largest social network to become the gatekeeper to the Internet for users.

''On the open Internet, everyone is equal,'' said Nikhil Pahwa, publisher of MediaNama, an Indian news site, who has vociferously opposed Internet.org. ''On Internet.org, Facebook is the kingmaker.''

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India is still considering potential regulations. In a recent interview, however, the agency's chairman, Ram Sewak Sharma, was sceptical of Internet.org. ''Maybe they have wonderful objectives, but the way it is being implemented, that's not really appropriate,'' he said.

Pahwa helped organize a campaign called Save the Internet, which rallied 1 million Indians to press regulators to stop Internet.org and establish rules protecting net neutrality.

That principle, also a subject of intense debate in the United States and Europe, says that Internet access providers should give customers equal access to all content.

Daniels said Facebook had been listening to all the criticism and had made many changes to Internet.org, including opening it to other companies that wanted to offer free services on the platform. ''We always appreciate feedback, in whatever form it comes,'' he said.