Mark Zuckerberg launches plan to connect entire world to Internet
Facebook, Ericsson, MediaTek, Nokia, Opera, Qualcomm, and Samsung announced an ambitious plan Tuesday to try and help five billion people get online.
Comments (6)BY DAVID KNOWLES / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 21, 2013, 5:17 PM
JUSTIN SULLIVAN/GETTY IMAGES
Mark Zuckerberg announced Tuesday that Facebook and six other companies will partner on a new project to try and connect two-thirds of the world's population to the Internet.
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The world wide web may finally be about to live up to its billing.
Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced Tuesday that his social networking empire will be teaming up with six high tech and mobile companies to bring Internet access to the masses.
By launching Internet.org, Facebook, Ericsson, MediaTek, Nokia, Opera, Qualcomm, and Samsung are setting out to help the remaining two-thirds of the world’s population get online so that they can have “the same opportunities" that "the connected third of the world has today.” The group says that just 2.7 billion people on the planet have access to the Internet, and that number is growing by less than 9% each year.
In a press release posted to Facebook, Zuckerberg argued that the motivation for helping expand global access to the Internet was not simply in the best interest of the companies involved.
"The unfair economic reality is that those already on Facebook have way more money than the rest of the world combined, so it may not actually be proļ¬table for us to serve the next few billion people for a very long time, if ever. But we believe everyone deserves to be connected," Zuckerberg wrote.
In its March earnings report, Facebook said it had 1.11 billion users, up 23% from a year ago. To keep that kind of growth rate going, however, the will need to bolster the number of global Internet users.
Given that Facebook’s future is decidedly going mobile, with the company posting an impressive $656 million in ads from hand-held devices in the second quarter of 2013, it’s not surprising that several of Internet.org’s partners are cell phone companies.
In order to increase the number of people online, the companies involved will partner to develop “lower-cost, higher-quality smartphones and partnerships to more broadly deploy internet access in underserved communities,” Internet.org said in a press release.
While Apple is not one of those companies, the computer giant is also set to target lower income customers around the world with the debut of its low-cost iPhone next month.
Zuckerberg said he believes that Internet.org is simply an extension of Facebook’s overall mission.
"Everything Facebook has done has been about giving all people around the world the power to connect," Zuckerberg in a statement. "There are huge barriers in developing countries to connecting and joining the knowledge economy. Internet.org brings together a global partnership that will work to overcome these challenges, including making internet access available to those who cannot currently afford it."
Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/facebook-launches-plan-connect-entire-world-internet-article-1.1433065#ixzz2chf00d00
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