Internet.org

Internet.org is a partnership between social networking services company Meta Platforms and six companies (Samsung, Ericsson, MediaTek, Opera Software, Nokia and Qualcomm) that plans to bring affordable access to selected Internet services to less developed countries by increasing efficiency, and facilitating the development of new business models around the provision of Internet access.

[10] In July 2017, Global Voices published the widespread[11][12] report[13][14] "Free Basics in Real Life" analyzing its practices in Africa, Asia and Latin America, and concluding it violates net neutrality, focuses on "Western corporate content",[11] and overall "it's not even very helpful".

[2][15][16] At the time of launch, Facebook's founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg released a ten-page whitepaper he had written elaborating on the vision that asserts that connectivity is a "human right".

[24] Participating websites must meet three criteria:[25] On March 27, 2014, Facebook announced a connectivity lab as part of the Internet.org initiative, with the goal of bringing the Internet to everybody via drones, acquired from the company Ascenta.

In free space optics, the signal is sent in a compact bundle of infrared light[30] At Mobile World Congress March 2015, Mark Zuckerberg says that the Internet.org initiative was "willing to work" with Project Loon (Google's project to use high-altitude balloons to provide people cheaper Internet access) but emphasizes that in his view, the real work is in partnering with existing telecommunications companies to improve access and reduce costs for people already within range of a network, which he estimates at over 80% of the population.

[31][32] In October 2015, Facebook and Eutelsat leased the entire Ka-band capacity (36 spot beams with a total throughput of 18 Gbit/s) on the planned AMOS-6 satellite to provide access to parts of Africa[33][34] AMOS-6 was intended to be launched on flight 29 of a SpaceX Falcon 9 to geosynchronous transfer orbit on 3 September 2016.

The primary objective of this summit was to bring together experts, officials and industry leaders to focus on ways to deliver more Internet services for people in languages other than English.

[37][38][39][40] In 2015 After a lot of criticism of Internet.org which has a partnership with Reliance in India, Mark Zuckerberg replied in an article for Hindustan Times stating that Internet.org and net neutrality can co-exist and Internet.org will never differentiate between services.

[24] The PMO has expressed displeasure at Facebook's reaction to and handling of TRAI's consultation paper, calling it a crudely majoritarian and orchestrated opinion poll.

[46][47][48] The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) in January 2016 criticized Facebook for its misleading commercials and astroturfing the Free Basics campaign.

Mobile with Free Basics zero rating plan showing Spanish Wikipedia main page in Mexico