In August 2013, Facebook and a coalition of other leading technology companies announced the launch of Internet.org, a global effort to make affordable Internet access available to the next 5 billion people.
Today,
Internet.org has released a white paper with contributions from
Facebook, Qualcomm and Ericsson focused on the importance of efficiency
in delivering on the promise of connectivity as a human right. The white
paper can be downloaded here: http://internet.org/efficiencypaper.
The
paper examines how Facebook approached building more efficient
infrastructure technologies to connect over a billion users and how it’s
working to build mobile apps that use less data and power. Qualcomm and
Ericsson’s contributions look to the future and what will be required
to ensure that mobile networks and infrastructure will ready to support
the next wave of mobile Internet usage.
As founding members of
Internet.org, we believe it’s possible to build infrastructure that will
sustainably provide free access to basic Internet services in a way
that enables everyone with a phone to connect to the Internet.
With
this paper we hope to provide a small contribution to the work of
countless companies, entrepreneurs and innovators working to drive new
gains in efficiency. By understanding some of the efforts that have
already been made towards this end, and the lessons learned along the
way, we hope to inspire new thinking and approaches – and help move the
industry forward.