MENLO PARK, CALIF – In an attempt to reach out to the billions of inhabitants of Earth who have not yet had the pleasure of being poked, Facebook has announced the launch of Internet.org – a global partnership with six other technology giants composed of Ericsson, MediaTek, Nokia, Opera, Qualcomm and Samsung.
The partnership is designed to make Internet access available to the two-thirds of the world who are not yet connected ?”by reducing the cost and amount of data required for most apps and enabling new business models,” said Facebook in a press release.
“?Everything Facebook has done has been about giving all people around the world the power to connect,?” said Facebook? founder and CEO Mark 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.?”
The group’s plans include developing cheaper smartphones and using mobile data more efficiently. “Everything Facebook has done has been about giving all people around the world the power to connect. There are huge barriers in developing countries to connecting and joining the knowledge economy,” Zuckerberg said.
Facebook contends that only 2.7 billion people, about one-third of the world’s population, have access to the internet. Internet adoption, it claims, is growing by less than 9% each year, which is ?”slow considering how early we are in its development.? The goal of Internet.org is to ?make internet access available to the two-thirds of the world who are not yet connected, and to bring the same opportunities to everyone that the connected third of the world has today,?”dded Facebook.
Hans Vestberg, president and CEO of Ericsson, says his company is committed to shaping “the ?Networked Society ?? where everyone and everything will be connected in real time; creating the freedom, empowerment and opportunity to transform society. We believe affordable connectivity and internet access improves people?s lives and helps build a more sustainable planet, and therefore we are excited to participate in the Internet.org initiative.”
The partnership will tackle barriers to increasing access to the internet such as the cost of smartphones, the cost of delivering data, and inefficient data-hungry applications. Cheaper phones, improved data compression techniques, and apps that use less data and reduce battery usage are some of the initial areas the founding members will be investigating. Others include more efficient allocation of spectrum, edge caching, sharing hardware design, and efficiency optimization.
