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.