Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg announced that his younger project, Internet.org, will be open to more wireless carriers around the globe. In celebration of the venture's first successful year, the team behind Internet.org invited more mobile carriers to host the platform and provide basic internet tools at no charge to their subscribers on July 26, Sunday.
Introduced in Zambia, the wireless project was created for people who remain unfamiliar to the web at this age of technology and social media. The advancement provides basic internet and is equipped with services such as news, dictionary, job postings, sports, Wattpad, and many others.
From its launch in 2014, Internet.org was backed by Facebook, Nokia, Samsung and other top technology companies. The venture has reached 17 countries and over a billion people. Many saw the internet for the first time through this innovation, CNET reported.
While many users are thankful to the project for bringing to the online world, there were carriers who worried that internet.org will cannibalize their data plans. Zuckerberg assured them that the statistics showed otherwise. Over half of the people who started using the web through Internet.org transitioned into paid data plans in less than a month.
Some parties also questioned how the Facebook founder chooses the sites that become a part of the platform. There were claims that he was just picking his favorite sites and grouping them all together. Zuckerberg said that he only wanted to give global access and voice to everyone and show people the importance of the internet, Tech Crunch reported.
Facebook has launched a special portal for carriers who are interested to ink a partnership with Zuckerberg. The platform includes best practices and technical tools to guide their future collaborators.