Last year, when Mark Zuckerberg arrived in India for Facebook’s first Internet.org Summit, he addressed the barriers to internet connectivity and explored ways to provide internet access to more than a billion people in India who aren’t yet connected.
Today, it announced the launch of Internet.org Android app in India which is aimed to provide free internet to mobile phone users in developing countries, where Facebook partners with telecom service providers and content partners. The tie-up provides free access to 33 websites – an initiative that aims to encourage more people to use the Internet. These websites are across eight categories – social media, news, career, education & knowledge, sports, health & social welfare and search engine Bing.
Facebook has partnered with Reliance Communications in India and the service will be available in selected regions for now. Reliance customers in six Indian states (Tamil Nadu, Mahararashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Kerala, and Telangana) will have access to this facility as of now.
On logging into Internet.org, you are presented with two tabs – Free Services and Reliance. The free services include: Facebook, AajTak, Bing Search, ClearTrip, ESPN Cricinfo, Hungama Play, India Today, Times of India, Wikipedia and many more which can be accessed through the start screen of the Opera Mini mobile browser, and using the UC Browser app for Internet.org. The services will be available in six languages which include English, Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Gujarati and Marathi.
According to RCom, these services will be available for free to RCom subscribers. You can either log on to www.internet.org or call 1800 300 25353 which is a toll free number, to get Internet.org activated. Reliance has said that Internet.org works as a mobile website on feature phones, whereas with Android phones, you can download the Internet.org app.
Mark Zuckerberg in a Facebook post commented, “Over the last year we’ve rolled out Internet.org free basic services to countries with more than 150 million people total across Africa and Latin America. More than 6 million people are already connected to the internet who previously weren’t, and we’ve started hearing incredible stories about how the internet is changing lives and communities. But to continue connecting the world, we have to connect India. More than a billion people in India don’t have access to the internet. That means they can’t enjoy the same opportunities many of us take for granted, and the entire world is robbed of their ideas and creativity. Today’s announcement is just one step towards changing that. People on the Reliance network in the states of Tamil Nadu, Mahararashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Kerala and Telangana will now have free data access to more than three dozen services. We still have a long way to go to connect India. But I’m optimistic that by getting free basic services into people’s hands, more change can follow pretty rapidly.”