Facebook App Lets Zambians On The Airtel Network Access The Internet Without Data Charges

About a year ago, Facebook founder, Mark Zuckerbergannounced Internet.org, its latesteffort to bringing affordable internet access to everyone in the world.

Today, the companylaunched the Internet.org app in Zambia in partnership withthe Airtel network, thus allowing people in Zambia with free data access to basic internet services such as health, education and jobs.

This means thatZambia will now be the first country in the world where this service is available.

According to Zuckerberg in a Facebookpost,

Right now, only 15% of people in Zambia have access to the internet. Soon, everyone will be able to use the internet for free to find jobs, get help with reproductive health and other aspects of health, and use tools like Facebook to stay connected with the people they love.

While theapp would enable users tobrowse basichealth, employment and local information services without any data charges, Facebook says it hopes tocontinue to improve the experience and roll it out to other parts of the world.

Through the app, Airtel subscribers in Zambia would now be able to have basic access to services such as AccuWeather, Google Search, Facebook, Go Zambia Jobs, Wikipedia and more without data charges.However, theapp also has a link to learn more about Airtel services, sousers would likely be inundated by Airtel products and services as well.

It is unclear if Airtel customerswould need to be subscribed to a particular data bundle or plan in order to be able to have access to these services.

The move is said to be part of Facebooks commitment to providingaccess to free basic internet services tools for health, education, jobs and basic communication for the next billion people around the world.