Ncell Free Facebook offer and Net Neutrality?

Ncell has started providing free Facebook to all of its customers through Facebook’s official apps. Ncell claims this is in line with their #internetforall campaign. This free Facebook offer is not actually free, as there are some conditions that apply to the offer. Actually, It seems good for all those customers who can give up any multimedia content viewing for the free offers. First, let’s find what is actually free and what is not in the offer. Then Lets have a close analysis of Ncell Free Facebook Offer, related to Net Neutrality.

The free Facebook is actually a text version of Facebook. It lets you view unlimited texts and upload photos for Facebook for free on the Ncell network. You can also enjoy unlimited likes, shares, and comments. For android phones, You need to switch on data in your phone, use the official Facebook app, and click on free mode. For other phones, you can even activate by dialing *17114# and get a link from SMS. From the link, you can activate the free mode on your phone.

Even if it says text free, the chat or messaging from messenger will need data packs. As the messenger application is separate from the Facebook app and it may send or receive multimedia content, it is known not to be free. Also the Facebook browsing other than the main applications and non-proxy browsers, that is from proxy browsers is not free too. It is also not known to be available free from Facebook lite, a lighter version of Facebook application which is also official.

Any Ncell prepaid or postpaid users can take this offer. It will remain in effect for 90 days.

To view multimedia content on your Facebook or messenger, you have to purchase data packs. So this is not actually a fully free offer for Facebook. This is basically a partnership program of Facebook with operators to provide free basic internet to users. Facebook also proposed this sort of offer to India for some basic accessibility but the regulator rejected the idea due to their compliance with Net-neutrality.

Net neutrality is a principle that all internet traffic should be treated equally. The online protest also forced them to do so for the violation of Net neutrality for the fair and open internet and it discourages innovations. Facebook has also claimed their offer not to be violating net neutrality as any service provider can sign up for it. But India did not listen to their idea and till now such an offer is not available there.

Nepal’s position for Net-Neutrality.

As per the free, fair, and open internet policy, several countries have made a firm stand for Net neutrality. Nepal’s stance for the Net neutrality is not clear yet. Here free means no intervention in the internet traffic, it does not relate to the price incurred for internet usage. There are claims that Nepal also complies with Net neutrality. But if it had complied, this sort of offer should not reach customers. Free Facebook and Free Twitter offers are totally violations of Net-Neutrality and it is there for a long. This offer is just an improvisation of their free Facebook offer, which is not exactly free.

What is the effect of such free offers violating Net-neutrality?

Though there is a huge appraisal of the Free Facebook offer, the Net-neutrality campaigner has more to say on the offers, as it discourages innovation and startups.  Being a Giant, Facebook can provide free browsing for their applications but that will discourage the usage of other similar applications and platforms. This is totally against the free, fair, and open internet that is to be brought by the Net Neutrality principle. Many tech startups are now gearing up to protest against this sort of offer. Let’s see how well they fight to bring it down or to make the regulator listen about it.