Blocking, slowing down content on Internet should not be allowed: IT Minister

Tech News -  With over a million Internet users opposing TRAI's consultation paper on allowing telecom companies like Airtel, Vodafone and Reliance to charge consumers differently for using different websites and mobile applications, he said the government had powers to give directions to the regulator on public policy.
   
"Government agrees with the viewpoint that blocking and deliberate slowing down/speeding up of lawful content on Internet should not be allowed and customers should have unrestricted access to all lawful content on Internet," he said replying to a call attention notice on net neutality in Rajya Sabha.
   
He, however, said the implications of net neutrality would need detailed expert examination with regard to traffic management, national security, integrity of network and investment in infrastructure.
   
"This is what governments and regulators all over the world are grappling with," he said.
   
Prasad said as per the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) Act, TRAI makes recommendations to Government on regulating various aspects of telecom sector.
   
TRAI's powers to regulate tariff and quality of service are subject to overall public policy of government and "the government has sufficient powers under the TRAI Act to invoke its national policy objectives to give directions to TRAI," he said.

Source:  Online Hindi News 

 

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Unsustainable to offer whole Internet for free, says Facebook's Zuckerberg

Tech News - Facebook also said that internet.org is open to all content and application developers who meet "certain guidelines". This follows criticism from free internet advocates that the social networking site was "hand-picking services" violating principles of net neutrality.

Zuckerberg, who in the past had defended internet.org, said in his video blog posted today, that the programme supports itself.
  
"When people use free basic services, more of them then decide to pay to access the broader Internet and this enables operators to keep offering these basic services for free. It is not sustainable to offer the whole Internet for free," he said.
  
But, it is sustainable to offer free basic services that are simpler, use less data and work on all low-end phones, he added.
  
The net neutrality debate in India was triggered after Airtel introduced an open marketing platform 'Airtel Zero' where the data charges were being borne by application developers. Facebook, which has tied up with Reliance Communications for internet.org initiative in India, too offer access 33 websites for free.
  
Free Internet advocates had raised objections to these platforms, saying there were in violation of net neutrality, which stands for equal treatment for all Internet traffic and any priority based on payment to service providers like telecom companies is seen as discriminatory.

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New technology may double data capacity of networks

Tech News - Researchers have invented full-duplex radio integrated circuits (ICs) that can enable simultaneous transmission and reception at the same frequency in a wireless radio.
  
Up to now, this has been thought to be impossible: transmitters and receivers either work at different times or at the same time but at different frequencies.
  
The Columbia University team, led by Electrical Engineering Associate Professor Harish Krishnaswamy, is the first to demonstrate an IC that can accomplish this.
  
"This is a game-changer. By leveraging our new technology, networks can effectively double the frequency spectrum resources available for devices like smartphones and tablets," said Krishnaswamy.
  
In the era of Big Data, the current frequency spectrum crisis is one of the biggest challenges researchers are grappling with and it is clear that today's wireless networks will not be able to support tomorrow's data deluge, researchers said.
  
Today's standards, such as 4G/LTE, already support 40 different frequency bands, and there is no space left at radio frequencies for future expansion.

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E-lerter App sends emergency alerts to your smartphone

According to its developer Jamie Brandt from the Alberta-based firm Stony Plain, the notification banner will not vanish until it has been acknowledged.

"That means you will not miss any important warnings," he added.

The app users can also specify which area to scan for emergency alerts so that they would only receive local-specific news. According to Brandt, E-lerter makes sense as people have become more reliant on their mobile devices.

Mobile app 'Ziman' launched for women and children safety

With an aim of preventing rising crimes against women and children in the country, a new mobile application called 'Ziman', a 24x7 virtual protector, was launched by an IT company.

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Airtel drops plans to charge extra for VoIP calls

"In view of the news reports that a consultation paper will be issued shortly by TRAI on issues relating to services offered by OTT (over the top content) players including VoIP, we have decided not to implement our proposed launch of VoIP packs," Bharti Airtel said in a statement.
   
The operator had earlier decided to charge VoIP calls on pay as you go basis, at standard data rates of 4 paise per 10 KB on 3G network and 10 paise per 10 KB on 2G network.
  
Besides, it had also announced special VoIP packs.
   
"We have no doubt that as a result of the consultation process a balanced  outcome would emerge that would not only protect the interests of all stakeholders and viability of this important sector but would also encourage much needed investments in spectrum and roll out of data networks to fulfil the objective of digital India," Airtel said.

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A 'forced log out' for some Android users

The users who tried to logging into Twitter received an error message saying 'Some users are currently having trouble signing in to twitter. Our engineers are currently working to resolve this.  Moreover, the computer application, TweetDeck, was displaying tweets which were a year old.

TweetDeck users reported that all their tweets show as 365 days old. On social networking site Reddit, several users wrote that they could not log in and some thought that their account had been hacked. Only Apple iOS devices were working fine for logging into Twitter.

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Google launches app for SMBs to access potential customers

The new and simple-to-use product has been designed to work across both desktop and mobile devices and will help the businesses to create and update their business info on Google Search, Maps and Google pluse from one place for free both in English and Hindi, Suryanarayana Kodukulla, Head of SMB Sales, Google India said.
  
"Jaipur in among top 15 cities which contribute to 60 per cent of SME business but still their online presence is quite low. Google's product will help them increase their online presence and get discovered by their potential clients," he said.
  
"The business owner can download a free app from the Google Play store and can update details like contact information, pictures and map which will be displayed in Google search," he said.
  
Kodukulla said the app was launched recently and has received a good response.
  
"The initial response is good," he said.

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YouTube's offline viewing service to counter low bandwidth, expensive data plans

Under the service, which went live in India, a user can click on the special icon on the site when she is either in a wi-fi zone or a place with good data connectivity, and download a video which can be watched later.
  
The downloaded videos can be watched as many times within 48 hours and the advertiser's interests have been protected through an innovation wherein the advertisement appears before a playback of the video, like it would for online usage.
   
The US-based internet advertising giant said a large number of videos are already available and the company is speaking to more content partners to opt for this service.
  
Once the device connects back to the internet, analytics around the number of times the video was watched will be transfered to the YouTube servers.
  
It can be noted that already, there are a slew of applications available online which let users download videos to be watched offline, but Google India's managing director Rajan Anandan stressed that this is illegal and amounts to piracy of content.
    

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