Internet shutdowns due to CAA protests cost mobile operators loss of 24.5 million rupees in revenue per hour

Indian
mobile operators are losing around 24.5 million rupees ($350,000) in revenue
every hour they are forced to suspend internet services on government orders to
control protests against a new citizenship law, a top lobby group said on
Friday.

Countrywide
protests have been in continuation for three weeks after parliament passed
legislation which gives minorities from neighbouring Pakistan, Afghanistan and
Bangladesh a path to citizenship but excludes Muslims.

To control protests,
the government has deployed thousands of police as immediately ordered mobile
data to shutdown as pepople used social media such as Instagram and TikTok to
wage a parallel battle online. Such internet suspensions have been criticised
by internet freedom activists.

On Friday,
mobile internet was ordered shut in at least 18 districts in northern Uttar
Pradesh state, a telecoms industry source told.

Indians
consume an average 9.8 gigabyte of data per month on their smartphones, the
highest in the world, according to Swedish telecoms gearmaker Ericsson. The
country is the biggest market by users for social media firm Facebook and its
messenger WhatsApp.

Internet
shutdowns should not be first course of action, said the Cellular Operators
Association of India (COAI), which counts mobile carriers Bharti Airtel,
Vodafone Idea and Reliance Industries’ Jio Infocomm as its members.

The bans
follow an unmatched shutdown of internet and text messaging services in parts
of Delhi last week, widening a communications clampdown in restive areas
stretching from disputed Kashmir to the northeast.

Internet services in Indian Kashmir were suspended for over 140 days since New Delhi relegated its status to a federal administered territory from a state, making it the longest such shutdown in a democracy.