By Guy Rosen, Facebook Product Management Director
Over 85% of the world’s population lives in areas with existing cellular coverage, yet only about 30% of the total population accesses the internet. Affordability and awareness are significant barriers to internet adoption for many so we introduced the Internet.org app, at the end of July, to make the internet accessible to more people by providing a set of free basic services.
With this app, people can browse a set of useful health, employment and local information services without data charges. By providing free basic services via the app, we hope to bring more people online and help them discover valuable services they might not have otherwise.
The Internet.org app will be available first to Airtel subscribers in Zambia and we’ll continue to improve the experience and roll it out to other parts of the world.
Through the Internet.org app, Airtel customers in Zambia will have basic access to:
- AccuWeather
- Airtel
- eZeLibrary
- Facts for Life
- Google Search
- Go Zambia Jobs
- Kokoliko
- MAMA (Mobile Alliance for Maternal Action)
- Messenger
- Wikipedia
- WRAPP (Women’s Rights App)
- Zambia uReport
Airtel customers in Zambia can access these services in the Internet.org Android app, at www.internet.org, or within the Facebook for Android app.