Presentation at the 2016 Ghana IGF

1. Zero Rating
A BLESSING IN DISGUISED
Yusif Amadu
University of Ghana
yamadu@ug.edu.gh
0244659245

2. What is Zero-rating?
The practice of offering free access to certain
popular online services for customers of particular
mobile networks. Several major service providers
have entered into arrangements with mobile
network operators in a variety of countries to
deliver low-data-usage.

3. Why Zero-Rating?
• Zero Rated content entices users to go online and is an
attractive venue to accustom users to the experience of
Internet services(Galpaya, Helani. 2015)
• Zero-rating brings down the cost of access to information in
less developed countries. A user of Wikipedia Zero, for
example, has unlimited or no-cost to access everything in
the online encyclopedia

4. How Zero Rating functions
• Telephone companies in joint agreement with content provider
such as Facebook offer different flavours of zero rated content
(In Ghana, Airtel and Tigo offer free access such as Facebook, Imo, WhatsApp)
• Zero Rated customers consumes mobile Internet on a capped and
metered basis for example MTN Ghana Sunday special
• A specific volume of data can be downloaded or uploaded for a
given value (or per month) anything above this data cap is paid for
• Zero rated content refers to content that doesn’t count towards
the users’ data cap.

5. Addressing Concerns about Zero
Rating
• Zero-rated programs do not offer full access to the open
Internet,
• Challenge fundamental functions of the web such as the
ability to link from one source of content to another
elsewhere on the web
• Restrict subscribers to some form of “walled garden”,
where users have access to a limited number of
applications or Services for example App Store.

6. • Create twisted incentives for subscribers to access the
“free” services of identified partners instead of competing
services and hence risks anticompetitive effects.
• Challenges fundamental principles of net neutrality,
and may present particular development concerns by giving
dominant web services an advantage over emerging local
competition

7. Zero-Rated Services Are Not New
• Way back in 2010, Facebook launched Facebook Zero in 45
countries globally, to give people free access to Facebook on
feature phones.
• Then in 2012, Wikipedia teamed up with Orange to offer
Wikipedia Zero on smartphones in Uganda. This zero-rating of
Wikipedia content was exactly the same as Facebook Zero.
• Google jumped on the zero-rating services with Free Zone in the
Philippines and South Africa, giving free access to Gmail, Google
Search, and Google+.
(Wayan Vota on January 14, 2016)

8. Facebook and Zero Rating
• Facebook Zero not only
increases the number of
Internet users in the short
run, but, causes a long-run
increase in Internet
adoption
(in Asia 50% of people who got access to
Free Basics, they moved to the broader
Internet within the very first 30 days after
they got the first experience with the service)
(Internet Governance Forum 2015)
• Facebook insists that its
intention with Free Basics
is to bring the power of the
Internet to everyone,
leading to everyone's
development, and growth of
the nation.

9. Zero Rating and Competition
• Some net neutrality
advocates have challenged
Zero Rating by stating that
it violates the principle of
non-discrimination and
• Risks anticompetitive
effects and limits freedom
of expression.
• Zero Rating programs
typically do not raise
serious concerns with
respect to anticompetitive
effects.
• Rather, concerns about
diversity of expression
appear to be based more on
speculation than empirical
evidence, and to ignore the
positive effects of Zero
Rating

10. Conclusion
Zero-rating programs function as transitional models:
• provide initial incentives or awareness-raising marketing;
• encourage individuals to begin using Internet-connected
services;
• The best way to increase the number of people with access
to the open Internet, we do not have to overlook the
continuing need to demonstrate the potential benefits of
Internet access to people in economically and
geographically diverse contexts;

11. • Zero-rating gets more people online, 6 million new users in 14 months in the
Philippines. No ICT4D initiative has accomplished that, ever;
• Zero Rating is a market-driven mechanism for achieving economically efficient
and socially desirable outcomes;
• Zero Rating improves economic efficiency by supporting continuing investment
and innovation in both networks and content while expanding Internet access to
consumers who would otherwise be unserved;
• Zero Rating critics have not demonstrated any harm to competition or consumers
from Zero Rating, or even shown that any individual competitors have been
disadvantaged.
Stop hating the player and change the game