Mark Zuckerberg and Others Join Hands to Bring Internet to Remaining 5 Billion People

Mark Zuckerberg

Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO and founder of Facebook has immersed himself in a new campaign. This project, however, might prove to be much harder than any other one he has faced up till now. He has embarked on a mission to bring the internet to the remaining 2/3rd population of the world who aren’t connected.

And Zuckerberg aims to get these remaining 5 billion people to internet through their phones (read smartphones).

His partners include Nokia, Samsung, Qualcomm, Ericsson, MediaTek, Opera and of course, Facebook. The project aims in three basic goals: Accessibility, i.e. to bring the services of the cell phone carriers and manufacturers to a wider audience through more accessible plans and business models; affordability, to make these services cheaper; and efficiency, to lower the amount of bandwidth being used by improving the infrastructure.

“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.” Mark Zuckerberg

Other companies’ leaders wholeheartedly applauded this venture. Nokia CEO Stephen Elop called the Universal Internet Access “the next great industrial revolution.” Samsung CEO also gave it a thumbs up saying it’s got a huge potential.

Zuckerberg further detailed the concept in a document in which, he described the project as one of the most challenging of this generation.

“I’m focused on this because I believe it is one of the greatest challenges of our generation,” he said, “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 profitable for us to serve the next few billion people for a very long time, if ever. But we believe everyone deserves to be connected.”

Whether this project will be fruitful or not is questionable but it certainly is huge. Even if its only partially successful, lives of millions of people might get changed.


      • Google and Facebook DID allow NSA access to data and were in talks to set up ‘spying rooms’ despite denials by Zuckerberg and Page over PRISM project.

        • When the government tells you to spy on your users OR ELSE GO TO JAIL, then “Did Allow” is the wrong phrase. “Were Forced To” is more correct.

            • You have clearly not being paying attention. Read up on “National Security Letters”. If you fail to comply with the request, you go to jail. If you tell anyone that you are ordered to spy on them, you go to jail. If you even talk to a LAWYER about it, you go to jail.

              And yes, a few did fight back. Google did exactly that earlier this year but I don’t know what the court decided. They did it before PRISM story came out. Others have fought back but their names are not public.

      • Yes, they plead users to give them secret. And then they sell this info to Govt. But they dont spy.

        • Even if they do not spy, imagine the revenue spike of Facebook when a reasonable chunk of the remaining 5 Billion population would subscribe for Facebook ads to promote their business.

          Even if they tie up with telcos and ISPs to offer Facebook usage for free, they would still make Billions of dollars from ads.

          There is no free lunch in this world.

          • Welcome to Google’s model. Did you really think Google was a “search” company? They’re an advertising company, have been for a decade if not longer.

            • Agreed. More than 90% of their revenue is driven by ads.

              Mark Zuckerberg’s act clearly depicts the attitude of “Capitalistic Philanthropy” that covers their sheer greed for money with love for humanity.

            • It is not about a laborer being engaged in giving an ad; it is all about reach. Once Facebook expands it reach, it can sell its reach by increasing cost of putting an ad. At the same time, more people would be lured to using Facebook as a primary platform for promoting their business, again result in more revenue for Facebook.

        • Facebook never demands you to give it anything, other than your email address and phone number for verification.

          Same with Google.
          Same with Twitter.
          Same with Myspace.
          Same with any other service out there.

          You can give it the minimum and never post and they won’t delete your account.

          So, any more you give it, is your fault.


  • Get Alerts

    Follow ProPakistani to get latest news and updates.


    ProPakistani Community

    Join the groups below to get latest news and updates.



    >