This post is released under a CC BY license. Please feel free to republish on your site, with attribution and a link. Adaptation and rewriting, though allowed, should be true to the original. What it was like before Mobile Internet opened up Imagine what kind of an Internet you would have in India three years from now, once the Airtel Zero idea, of creating a free Internet by allowing Internet companies to buy data, becomes the norm across telecom operators. The top 4 telecom operators are adding around 9 million mobile Internet users a quarter. India is adding around 14-15 million a quarter, and that's around 60 million a year, probably more, with free. Where will the next 200 million users that will come online in India prefer to go? Will they buy a data pack, or will they use the free Internet? How Airtel Zero splits the Internet in India (tweet this) Airtel Zero, which we wrote about yesterday, is a platform that allows Internet companies to pay money to Airtel, to allow users to get free Internet. On the face of it, for a user, this seems great. A few things to consider on how it splits the Internet: - Free and paid: What will they use? Facebook's free Internet.org. Free Cricinfo. Maybe the free Indian Express (which calls "Net Neutrality" nonsense, here...do read the comments) instead of The Hindu or Times of India? Maybe YouTube will be free while Vimeo and Dailymotion will not be. Shopping from Flipkart at no data charges? Google, a part of…
