Airtel bludgeons net-neutrality
If you have been following the news, you'll know that I'm referring to the stupid money-grabbing move of Airtel to charge extra for using VoIP services over their network . To the unaware about how this affects them, any app which routes calls over the internet - Google Hangouts, Viber, Skype - uses Voice over IP : VoIP. Airtel will charge users for calling/answering such calls, over and above the charge for data you consume for this type of call. This logically makes no sense to me. If it were Skype/Viber charging users for the service, I would have unerstood. Is Airtel providing this VoIP service - no. Does it agree to provide internet - yes. Then why are they trying to control what traffic is there on the internet channels by putting differential pricing? It is something like the municipality charging different rates for how we use drinking water. "Hey, you are going to put this water in a filter? It'll cost Rs.1 per litre. But if you put it through RO-purifier, ...