He explained how he believes his vision of providing Internet to the entire world, or to be precise, to those who will become Facebook users, can be made viable
Mark Zuckerberg came to Mobile World Congress with the air of a star. He obviously wants to convince the industry and primarily telecommunications providers to share his vision. What is that? To unite the world, as he once united his college classmates. And how will he achieve it?
By providing, he says, free Internet access to a billion people (for a start, and we're seeing it), to those who live in areas of the planet where there may theoretically be rudimentary network coverage – mainly through mobile telephony infrastructure – but are themselves unable to cope with the financial burden of paying for a data package or even acquiring a smartphone that in the developed world is considered outdated.
Stormy in the way he speaks and moves, well-trained in dealing with the public, constantly turning his head left and right to leave no one complaining, Zuckerberg may not have noticed that in the large audience there were even kings or even candidates for the throne.
Prince Philip of Spain was punctual in his appointment with Mark. He arrived ten minutes before Mr Facebook's speech began and certainly wouldn't have had to wait in any lines, as almost everyone else did, up to two hours before the doors opened.
In Barcelona, Mark Zuckerberg referred to the acquisition of Whatsapp, saying that he believes its value corresponds to the 19 billion in the deal, he reiterated that there are not many services in the world that have access to so many hundreds of millions of people and analyzed how he believes his vision of connecting the whole world, or to be precise, those who will become Facebook users, can be made viable.
“With Facebook, we have managed to connect more than a billion people. But the issue is not the connectivity itself, but what it brings with it for people. For example, access to basic goods, such as education. Increasing access in emerging markets can create millions of jobs, which will help these people deal with poverty. We are talking about basic services that everyone should and can have access to and that do not require a large amount of data. We are working on this model and we already have some results. In the Philippines, the number of people who have access to basic information has doubled.”.
Regarding the viability of this model of providing free Internet through Facebook, Zuckerberg said that he does not have all the answers… “We have to prove to ourselves that it can work. That is why I am here. But I honestly think that spending money on the Internet is a sensible thing to do. One of the unfair things in today’s economic reality is that the people with the vast majority of the wealth are the ones who are already on Facebook. I think we may lose some money on this effort for a while, but we have to connect the dots,” he said.
Referring to the three main pillars supporting his vision, he spoke:
-To reduce the cost of operating networks.
-Reducing the volume of data -he even specifically mentioned that a year ago the average Facebook user consumed 14 Mb daily, this volume with better programming and the use of more effective compression protocols has been reduced today to 2 and the goal is to drop to 1 Mb.
-And finally, more subscribers for providers, since after Facebook, messenger, Whatsapp and weather information, in order to proceed with the use of another service, someone will have to put their hand in their pocket.
Finally, regarding the NSA surveillance scandal, he said that "it was a really difficult situation for American internet companies, since user trust is very important." He stressed that the NSA had overcome its shortcomings and argued that the internet industry now has the opportunity to work better together than in the past and improve many things.
"Governments have an obligation to protect citizens and work transparently. I believe this whole story will turn out well," he concluded.
Source: protothema.gr
