In a new development on whether the contentious Free Basics will be allowed to roll out or not, TRAI has told Facebook that it has not received any response in support of the zero-rating platform.
TRAI in its letter had reportedly said that it had not received a single revised response to the consultation paper seeking comments on the specific issues raised.
MediaNama reported that TRAI wrote to Facebook on January 7 that it failed to connect with the people as the comments came from the domain names ‘facebook.com’ and ‘@supportfreebasics.in’ and when the regulator tried to reply to the comments, the emails bounced back.
“It appears that you have not been able to convey the message to your users (whose mail ids were with you) in time,” TRAI added.
Facebook in its letter to TRAI on January 6th had stated that 11 million people sent their responses in support of ‘digital equality’ and Free Basics.
However, TRAI’s records showed that it received only 1.89 million responses.
“Hence either the figures provided by you are wrong, or TRAI has not received the rest of the responses (if your figure of 11 million is correct),” TRAI wrote to Facebook.
“As these users had not communicated any valid communication address, TRAI was unable to communicate with them directly. Therefore, you were requested to communicate TRAI’s text to all such users immediately so that they could comment on specific questions raised in the Consultation Paper,” TRAI told Facebook.
Facebook also wrote to TRAI that it failed to communicate with people directly who had responded via missed call, as it did not have their email ids on record.
TRAI in its response said that Facebook had to find means of communicating with them.