Health service is a popular choice for users.
By Dileep Thekkethil
BENGALURU: The first anniversary report of Internet.org, released on Monday by Facebook claims that the initiative was able to bring more people to the web at a very fast pace, at least a half of them upgrading to the premium model within one month after signing up.
Talking to The Indian Express, Chris Daniels, the vice-president of Internet.org said, “We have noticed that users who have joined Internet.org want to move on and experience more internet. This is why at least half of them started moving to a paid plan within 30 days of going online.”
Facebook report also claims that Internet.org was instrumental in bringing new smartphone based internet users 50% faster since it launched the free internet service in collaboration with mobile operators. Another interesting data released by Facebook is with regard to the interest of the people who accessed the internet. It says, users searched and accessed health services more than a million times in the last months’ time.
Internet.org initiative, which focuses on the third world countries, was first launched in Zambia and over a period of one year, became available in 17 countries, including India, by partnering with dozens of service providers. In India, Internet.org has tied up exclusively with Reliance.
Daniels added “Yes, we do want more service providers and developers to be part of the service. In fact, we want all service providers to come on board.”
He also said that the first year of the initiative was the time to learn big lessons. As part of the learning, Facebook has now launched a sister portal to support Internet.org initiative that has the technical tools and best practices to help the internet outcasts to access it free and become part of the connected world.
“The DoT report emphasises the principles for the preservation of net neutrality and the statistics we have released today show is that Internet.org is a gateway to the internet and not a gatekeeper”, said Daniels to Indian Express.
“I think it is necessary for all countries to have services that bring more people online, as these people will then have a better life,” he added taking into account the kind of impact the Internet.org made in the life of millions of people across the world.