Mark Zuckerberg, founder and CEO of Facebook, announced plants to launch a new partnership aimed at making internet access available to the 5 billion-plus who don’t have access around the world.
One of the aspects of the new partnership is exploring making smartphones that cost less, which could be used by people for their primary access to internet.
“Everything Facebook has done has been about giving all people around the world the power to connect,” Zuckerberg said in a statement. “There are huge barriers in developing countries to connecting and joining the knowledge economy.”
The new partnership, Internet.org, “will work to overcome these challenges, including making internet access available to those who cannot currently afford it,” he said.
According to the partnership, only 2.7 billion people have access to the internet.
The other members of the group are Ericsson, MediaTek, Nokia, Opera, Qualcomm, and Samsung.
The other aspects are looking at reducing the amount of data required to log onto the internet and use apps from smartphones and testing new business models that work for both developing consumers as well as mobile phone companies.
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