Facebook to open up free Internet

Mumbai: Facebook Inc plans to scale up its service to offer free basic Internet on mobile phones, an executive said, after introducing the application in 17 developing countries over the past year.

In a blog post released to mark the first year of the initiative, Facebook said it will open a portal allowing any mobile operator to offer the service under its Internet.org platform. Facebook currently partners with specific operators to launch the service in different countries.

Internet.org has brought over nine million people online over the past year, Chris Daniels, vice-president of product for Internet.org, told Reuters on Monday. Facebook developed the platform with six technology partners to bring an estimated 4.5 billion unconnected people online, mainly in Latin America, Asia and Africa. It offers pared-down web services for free to users, along with access to Facebook’s own social network and messaging services.

Facebook’s blog post said that over the past year, the service had bought new users onto mobile networks on average over 50 per cent faster and that more than half the people using Internet.org are paying for data to access the wider Internet within 30 days.

The Internet.org application, launched in India in February in partnership with RCom, faced backlash with a number of leading technology and Internet firms pulling out of the service after activists claimed it violated the principles of a neutral Internet.

“I would say India is unique in that respect and very much an outlier. In other markets, Internet. org has been embraced as a pro-connectivity initiative that has garnered a lot of support,” Mr Daniels said.

A committee of the telecom ministry set up to examine the issue of net neutrality earlier this month recommended that collaborations between mobile operators and content providers that enable “gatekeeping” roles should be discouraged.