Facebook
is making real its promise of making the internet accessible to the vast
part of the world in the nearest future by providing access to free internet
data for all on the strength of drones technology.
The leading technology company launched the Free
Basics service
yesterday in Nigeria, a platform that will provide access to mobile websites
and services to internet users for free. Unlike most parts of the world, Free
Basics will rely on the capacity of Telecom services operators in Nigeria to
offer more than 85 free services dedicated to health, education, jobs, and
finance to users.
This
include Facebook Flex by Airtel Nigeria, which will allow people to access a
version of Facebook without data charges.
Meanwhile,
Facebook has announced that it is presently working on improving the Terragraph
code of the free WiFi project in order to make it faster and more efficient.
These efforts aims at making 7 Giga Byte Per Seconds (GBPS) data signal
stronger and equally efficient in different parts of the world. This follows
the discovery that the connection degrades when there’s a nearby object
blocking its path.
Industry
observers are of the opinion that the free internet platform is capable of
improving the data usage experience of Nigerians especially in the areas of
network quality, pricing and coverage. This follows the incessant cries by
customers that value for money is not given by the present service providers in
the country.
However, there are fears that the development may cripple the
economy of Mobile Network Service Operators whose business model is gradually
migrating from voice calls to data usage in an increasingly data-driven market.
What is left to be seen is if regulators will kill the project with
restrictions to the benefit of operators or allow it unfettered access to their
detriment. Already, Airtel allows free viewing of Facebook, with restrictions
to images, which you can only view when you switch to the data
mode.
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