MWC 2016: Mark Zuckerberg announces Telecom Infra Project to further Internet.org plans

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg spoke at the ongoing Mobile World Congress yesterday, stressing on the importance of connectivity for all. This is the third time that the Facebook chief addressed audiences at MWC and this time around his message was for the telecom industry, which is becoming increasingly vital for the growth of Facebook's Internet.org initiavtive.. 

Zuckerberg announced Facebook's new Telecom Infra project as part of the company's efforts to propogate the Internet.org service, which includes Free Basics, Express WiFi, Solar powered drones and more. Facebook's new Telecom Infra project aims at partnering with telecom companies to develop cost-effective ways of building telecom infrastructure for improved mobile internet connectivity. For the same, Facebook has tied up with 30 telecom companies including – Deutsche Telekom, Intel, Nokia and SK Telecom to accelerate the growth of existing mobile networks and to further the development of future networks such as 5G. Although, in his fireside chat at the Mobile World Congress, Zuckerberg called 5G "faster connections for rich people" and that the telecom industry should first ensure that they "finish the job of making sure that everyone in the world gets Internet access."
 

In a Facebook post announcing this new Telecom Infra project, Zuckerberg wrote,"Our inspiration for this initiative is the Open Compute Project, an effort launched by Facebook in 2011 where we open sourced our server, network and data centers designs to promote collaboration that has led to faster innovation and billions of dollars in efficiency savings across the industry. This new effort will follow the same principles of open technology design and collaboration, and we hope the cost savings from greater efficiency will be passed along to people by making their data plans cheaper and making it affordable for operators to extend their networks to places it hasn't traditionally been cost effective to do so. In this way, TIP will help us connect the world much faster."

You can read Zuckerberg's complete Facebook post below