Facebook Teams Up With Reliance To Launch Free Internet Access In India
Facebook has teamed up with Reliance Communications - India's second largest telecom operator - to provide basic Internet services on mobile phones without any charges. With this India has become the first Asian country to get Facebook's internet.org service.
The initiative will be kicked-off by making available the services to India's 22 regions and in the next three months, the plan will be expanded nationwide.
Under the initiative, internet.org users will be able to access 38 websites ranging from news, health, travel, local jobs, sports, communication, and local government information.
Some of the websites include:
- AccuWeather: Get updated weather information
- BBC News: Read news from around the world
- Bing Search: Find information
- Dictionary.com: Search for meanings of words
- Facebook: Communicate with friends and family
- India Today: Read local news
- NDTV: Read news
- Times of India: Read news
- Wikipedia: Find information
- wikiHow: Find information
"We address the affordability of data by having beneficial services and then we'll make it scalable for our partners so that once these users want to use more, they just buy the regular (data) plan," Markku Makelainen, Facebook's director of Global Operator Partnerships, told Reuters.
"One of our goals is to have a profitable partnership."
Facebook has partnered with more than 150 wireless providers over the past four years to offer free or discounted access to its social network, but the new Internet.org app is the first time the company has added services beyond its own website, Reuters added.
Backers of internet.org include Ericsson, Nokia, Samsung, Qualcomm and Opera Software.
