Zambia to get free basic Internet services

Facebook Founder, Mark Zuckerberg says Zambia will be the first country in the world to have a whole set of free basic Internet services ranging from Google to Wikipedia. Zuckerberg made this announcement on his Facebook post of 31 July. 

In a ground breaking deal with Zambia’s mobile phone company, Airtel users will now be able to have access to basic services such as eZeLibrary which contains the Zambian Constitution, Labour laws and information meant to help citizens know about how they are governed. Other services include MAMA (Mobile Alliance for Maternal Action), AccuWeather, Airtel, Facebook, Go Zambia Jobs, Kokoliko, Google search and so on.

Zuckerberg’s announcement follows that of a year ago when he said Internet.org and Facebook were working on efforts to bring affordable internet access to everyone in the world. Zuckerberg believes that everyone should have access to free basic internet services - tools for health, education, jobs and basic communication.

Zambia is a pilot project. By providing people in Zambia with free data access to basic Internet services, Facebook and Internet.org will enable people use the internet for free to find jobs, get information on health and also use tools like Facebook to stay connected.

In Zambia only 15% of the total population have access to the Internet. Data costs are usually very prohibitive. Guy Rosen, the Product Management Director associated with this development says “by providing free basic services via the app (Internet.org app), we hope to bring more people online and help them discover valuable services they might not have otherwise,” he said.

Comments to Zuckerberg’s Facebook post were positive with Robin Seemangal commenting: “Information and access to it is a fundamental human right. This project is extraordinarily important and I'm looking forward to seeing how far it goes”.

It is hoped that lessons from the Zambia experience will be used to roll out the project to other parts of the world.

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